Towards optimal integration of external information in a multi-trigger population study analysis

We present an algorithm for population study which optimally uses information obtained from the electromagnetic (or particle) counterpart of gravitational wave (GW) events. Existing methods do not associate suitable weight factors to the triggers besides trivial ones like a hard cutoff on flux. However, the assignment of weights needs to take into account the background astrophysical distribution to be estimated. This is done using a likelihood-based approach where electromagnetic (or particle) and gravitational wave data are incorporated into a common likelihood before the parameters of a given population distribution are estimated. We present preliminary results from this method using simulated data corresponding to simplified models of GW and electromagnetic detectors.