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Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE
Abstract:
We derive a Bayesian criterion for assessing whether signals observed in two
separate data sets originate from a common source. The Bayes factor for a
common vs. unrelated origin of signals includes an overlap integral of the
posterior distributions over the common source parameters. Focusing on
multimessenger gravitational-wave astronomy, we apply the method to the spatial
and temporal association of independent gravitational-wave and electromagnetic
(or neutrino) observations. As an example, we consider the coincidence between
the recently discovered gravitational-wave signal GW170817 from a binary
neutron star merger and the gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A: we find that the
common source model is enormously favored over a model describing them as
unrelated signals.
