An undergraduate lab experiment on matched filtering as used in gravitational wave detection

The detection of gravitational waves using matched filtering algorithms is just one example of the critical role that computational data analysis plays in contemporary physics. We present an undergraduate laboratory experiment where students apply matched filtering methods to detect weak signals in their noisy measurement data. The experiment is based on a Michelson interferometer and requires little additional equipment. To make the experiment accessible to students without programming skills, we developed an open-source graphical user interface for the matched filter search, which is also presented in this article. Finally, we demonstrate the ability to detect weak signals obtained with the experimental setup described here.