A targeted coherent search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences

Abstract: We present the details of a method for conducting a targeted, coherent search for compact binary coalescences. The search is tailored to be used as a followup to electromagnetic transients such as Gamma Ray Bursts. We derive the coherent search statistic for Gaussian detector noise and discuss the benefits of a coherent, multi-detector search over coincidence methods. To mitigate the effects of non-stationary data, we introduce a number of signal consistency tests, including the null SNR, amplitude consistency and several $\chi^{2}$ tests. We demonstrate the search performance on Gaussian noise and on data from LIGO's fourth science run and verify that the signal consistency tests are capable of removing the majority of noise transients and the search gives an efficiency comparable to that achieved in Gaussian noise.