Event Trigger Generator for Gravitational-Wave Data based on Hilbert-Huang Transform

The Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) is composed of the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and the Hilbert Spectral Analysis (HSA). The EMD decomposes any time series data into a small number of components called the Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs), compared to the Discrete Fourier Transform which decomposes a data into a large number of harmonic functions. Each IMF has varying amplitude and frequency with respect to time, which can be obtained by HSA. The time resolution of the modes in HHT is the same as that of the given time series, while in the Wavelet Transform, Constant Q Transform and Short-Time Fourier Transform, there is a tradeoff between the resolutions in frequency and time. Based on the time-dependent amplitudes of IMFs, we develop an Event Trigger Generator and demonstrate its efficiency by applying it to gravitational-wave data.