Instantaneous frequency estimation: Bayesian approaches versus reassignment-application to gravitational waves

Three new methods of instantaneous frequency estimation are introduced and compared in view of characterizing gravitational waves. Two methods are Bayesian and can be formulated as solutions of an ill-posed inverse problem with two different stochastic regularizations. Using either a state-space model for the time-frequency data or a compound non-uniform Bernoulli-Gauss model for the instantaneous frequency. The third method uses a reassignment technique applied to a spectrogram. In each case, averages based on different windowings permit to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio, leading to accurate results even below 0 dB.