All-Sky Search for Periodic Gravitational Waves In the Full S5 LIGO Data

Authors

J. Abadie, LIGO - California Institute of Technology
B. P. Abbott, California State University Fullerton
R. Abbott, University of Glasgow
T. D. Abbott, Universite de Savoie
M. Abernathy, Complesso Universitario di Monte sant'Angelo
T. Accadia, University of Naples Federico II
F. Acernese, California Institute of Technology
C. Adams, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
R. Adhikari, Leibniz University Hannover
C. Affeldt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P. Ajith, Stanford University
B. Allen, University of Florida
G. S. Allen, Louisiana State University
E. Amador Ceron, University of Birmingham
D. Amariutei, National Institute for Nuclear Physics
R. S. Amin, National Science Foundation
S. B. Anderson, Montana State University
W. G. Anderson, European Gravitational Observatory
K. Arai, Syracuse University
M. A. Arain, University of Western Australia
M. C. Araya, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
S. M. Aston, Universite Paris 7
P. Astone, Columbia University
D. Atkinson, Sezione di Pisa
P. Aufmuth, University of Pisa
C. Aulbert, National Institute for Subatomic Physics
B. E. Aylott, University of Texas at Brownsville
S. Babak, San Jose State University
P. Baker, Lomonosov Moscow State University
G. Ballardin, ComUE Paris-Saclay
Shaon Ghosh, Montclair State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-5-2012

Abstract

We report on an all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency band 50-800Hz and with the frequency time derivative in the range of 0 through -6×10-9Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby spinning and slightly nonaxisymmetric isolated neutron star in our Galaxy. After recent improvements in the search program that yielded a 10× increase in computational efficiency, we have searched in two years of data collected during LIGO's fifth science run and have obtained the most sensitive all-sky upper limits on gravitational-wave strain to date. Near 150Hz our upper limit on worst-case linearly polarized strain amplitude h0 is 1×10-24, while at the high end of our frequency range we achieve a worst-case upper limit of 3.8×10-24 for all polarizations and sky locations. These results constitute a factor of 2 improvement upon previously published data. A new detection pipeline utilizing a loosely coherent algorithm was able to follow up weaker outliers, increasing the volume of space where signals can be detected by a factor of 10, but has not revealed any gravitational-wave signals. The pipeline has been tested for robustness with respect to deviations from the model of an isolated neutron star, such as caused by a low-mass or long-period binary companion.

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevD.85.022001

MSU Digital Commons Citation

Abadie, J.; Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Abbott, T. D.; Abernathy, M.; Accadia, T.; Acernese, F.; Adams, C.; Adhikari, R.; Affeldt, C.; Ajith, P.; Allen, B.; Allen, G. S.; Amador Ceron, E.; Amariutei, D.; Amin, R. S.; Anderson, S. B.; Anderson, W. G.; Arai, K.; Arain, M. A.; Araya, M. C.; Aston, S. M.; Astone, P.; Atkinson, D.; Aufmuth, P.; Aulbert, C.; Aylott, B. E.; Babak, S.; Baker, P.; Ballardin, G.; and Ghosh, Shaon, "All-Sky Search for Periodic Gravitational Waves In the Full S5 LIGO Data" (2012). Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 11.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/physics-astron-facpubs/11

Published Citation

Abadie, J., Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. D., Abernathy, M., Accadia, T., ... & Colla, A. (2012). All-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the full S5 LIGO data. Physical Review D, 85(2), 022001.