Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-20-2011

Journal / Book Title

The Astrophysical journal letters

Abstract

Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are thought to be magnetars: neutron stars powered by extreme magnetic fields. These rare objects are characterized by repeated and sometimes spectacular gamma-ray bursts. The burst mechanism might involve crustal fractures and excitation of non-radial modes which would emit gravitational waves (GWs). We present the results of a search for GW bursts from six galactic magnetars that is sensitive to neutron star f-modes, thought to be the most efficient GW emitting oscillatory modes in compact stars. One of them, SGR 0501+4516, is likely 1kpc from Earth, an order of magnitude closer than magnetars targeted in previous GW searches. A second, AXP 1E 1547.0-5408, gave a burst with an estimated isotropic energy >1044erg which is comparable to the giant flares. We find no evidence of GWs associated with a sample of 1279 electromagnetic triggers from six magnetars occurring between 2006 November and 2009 June, in GW data from the LIGO, Virgo, and GEO600 detectors. Our lowest model-dependent GW emission energy upper limits for band- and time-limited white noise bursts in the detector sensitive band, and for f-mode ringdowns (at 1090Hz), are 3.0 × 1044 d 2 1erg and 1.4 × 10 47 d 2 1erg, respectively, where and d 0501 is the distance to SGR 0501+4516. These limits on GW emission from f-modes are an order of magnitude lower than any previous, and approach the range of electromagnetic energies seen in SGR giant flares for the first time.

DOI

10.1088/2041-8205/734/2/L35

Published Citation

Abadie, J., Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abernathy, M., Accadia, T., Acernese, F., ... & Corbitt, T. R. (2011). Search for gravitational wave bursts from six magnetars. The Astrophysical journal letters, 734(2), L35.

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