Beyond individually resolvable gravitational wave events such as binary black hole and binary neutron star mergers, the superposition of many more weak signals coming from a multitude of sources is expected to contribute to an overall background, the so-called stochastic gravitational wave background. In this review, we give an overview of possible detection methods in the search for this background and provide a detailed review of the data-analysis techniques, focusing primarily on current Earth-based interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. In addition, various validation techniques aimed at reinforcing the claim of a detection of such a background are discussed as well. We conclude this review by listing some of the astrophysical and cosmological implications resulting from current upper limits on the stochastic background of gravitational waves.

除了双黑洞和双中子星合并等单独可分辨的引力波事件之外，来自多个来源的更多微弱信号的叠加预计也会对整体背景产生影响，即所谓的随机引力波背景。在这篇综述中，我们概述了寻找这种背景的可能检测方法，并详细回顾了数据分析技术，主要关注当前基于地球的干涉引力波探测器。此外，还讨论了旨在加强检测此类背景的声明的各种验证技术。