Searches for Continuous Gravitational Waves from Supernova Remnants in the First Part of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Fourth Observing Run

Authors

• LIGO Scientific Collaboration
• Virgo Collaboration
• KAGRA Collaboration
• Marc Favata, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Shoan Ghosh, Montclair State UniversityFollow
• Rodica Martin, Montclair State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-20-2026

Journal / Book Title

Astrophysical Journal

Abstract

We present results from directed searches for continuous gravitational waves from a sample of 15 nearby supernova remnants, likely hosting young neutron star candidates, using data from the first eight months of the fourth observing run (O4) of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration. The analysis employs five pipelines: four semicoherent methods-the Band-Sampled-Data directed pipeline, Weave, and two Viterbi pipelines (single- and dual-harmonic)-and PyStoch, a cross-correlation-based pipeline. These searches cover wide frequency bands and do not assume prior knowledge of the targets' ephemerides. No evidence of a signal is found from any of the 15 sources. We set 95% confidence-level upper limits on the intrinsic strain amplitude, with the most stringent constraints reaching similar to 4 x 10(-26) near 300 Hz for the nearby source G266.2-1.2 (Vela Jr.). We also derive limits on neutron star ellipticity and r-mode amplitudes for the same source, with the best constraints reaching less than or similar to 10(-7) and less than or similar to 10(-5), respectively, at frequencies above 400 Hz. For frequencies above 200 Hz, these results represent the most sensitive wide-band directed searches for continuous gravitational waves from supernova remnants to date.

Comments

Only Montclair and organizational authors are listed. Please see PDF for additional authors by name.

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ae6263

MSU Digital Commons Citation

LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration; KAGRA Collaboration; Favata, Marc; Ghosh, Shoan; and Martin, Rodica, "Searches for Continuous Gravitational Waves from Supernova Remnants in the First Part of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Fourth Observing Run" (2026). Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 164.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/physics-astron-facpubs/164

Rights

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Published Citation

Abac, A. G., et al. “Searches for Continuous Gravitational Waves from Supernova Remnants in the First Part of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Fourth Observing Run.” The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 1004, no. 2, June 2026, p. 204. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae6263.