Reconstructing source motion from gravitational wave strain

Abstract

Searches for un-modelled burst gravitational wave (GW) signals return potential candidates for short-duration signals. As there is no clear model for the source in these searches, one needs to understand and reconstruct the system that produced the GWs. Here, we aim to reconstruct the source motion and masses of a system based only on its GW strain. We train a normalising flow on two models, including circular orbits and random unphysical motion of two point masses. These models are used as a toy problem to illustrate the technique. We then reconstruct a distribution of possible motions of masses that can produce the given GW signal. We demonstrate the ability to reconstruct the full distribution of possible mass motions from strain data across multiple GW detectors. This distribution encompasses the degenerate motions that are expected to produce identical GW strains.