The Critical Coupling Likelihood Method: A new approach for seamless integration of environmental and operating conditions of gravitational wave detectors into gravitational wave searches

Any search effort for gravitational waves (GW) using interferometric detectors like LIGO needs to be able to identify if and when noise is coupling into the detector's output signal. The Critical Coupling Likelihood (CCL) method has been developed to characterize potential noise coupling and in the future aid GW search efforts. By testing two hypotheses about pairs of channels, CCL is able to identify undesirable coupled instrumental noise from potential GW candidates. Our preliminary results show that CCL can associate up to $\sim 80%$ of observed artifacts with $SNR \geq 8$, to local noise sources, while reducing the duty cycle of the instrument by $\lesssim 15%$. An approach like CCL will become increasingly important as GW research moves into the Advanced LIGO era, going from the first GW detection to GW astronomy.