Reducing the effect of seismic noise in LIGO searches by targeted veto generation

One of the major obstacles to the detection and study of gravitational waves using ground-based laser interferometers is the effect of seismic noise on instrument sensitivity. Environmental disturbances cause motion of the interferometer optics, coupling as noise in the gravitational wave data output whose magnitude can be much greater than that of an astrophysical signal. We present an improved method of identifying times of high seismic noise coupling by tuning a gravitational-wave burst detection algorithm to the low-frequency signature of these events and testing for coincidence with a low-latency compact binary coalescence detection algorithm. This method has been proven highly effective in removing transients of seismic origin, with 60% of all compact binary coalescence candidate events correlated with seismic noise in just 6% of analysis time.