Identification of long-duration noise transients in LIGO and Virgo

The LIGO and Virgo detectors are sensitive to a variety of noise sources, such as instrumental artifacts and environmental disturbances. The Stochastic Transient Analysis Multi-detector Pipeline has been developed to search for long-duration (t 1 s) gravitational-wave (GW) signals. This pipeline can also be used to identify environmental noise transients. Here, we present an algorithm to determine when long-duration noise sources couple into the interferometers, as well as identify what these noise sources are. We analyze the cross-power between a GW strain channel and an environmental sensor, using pattern recognition tools to identify statistically significant structure in cross-power timefrequency maps. We identify interferometer noise from airplanes, helicopters, thunderstorms and other sources. Examples from LIGOs sixth science run, S6, and Virgos third scientific run, VSR3, are presented.