Einstein@Home Search for Periodic Gravitational Waves In LIGO S4 Data
B. Abbott, LIGO - California Institute of Technology
R. Abbott, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
R. Adhikari, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P. Ajith, Stanford University
B. Allen, Louisiana State University
G. Allen, University of California at Berkeley
R. Amin, University of Florida
D. P. Anderson, Columbia University
S. B. Anderson, University of Birmingham
W. G. Anderson, Leibniz University Hannover
M. A. Arain, Carleton College
M. Araya, National Science Foundation
H. Armandula, University of Glasgow
P. Armor, University of Western Australia
Y. Aso, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
S. Aston, San Jose State University
P. Aufmuth, Lomonosov Moscow State University
C. Aulbert, California Institute of Technology
S. Babak, Washington State University Pullman
S. Ballmer, University of Oregon
H. Bantilan, Syracuse University
B. C. Barish, University of Maryland
C. Barker, University of Massachusetts
D. Barker, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
B. Barr, University of Sannio
P. Barriga, Charles Sturt University
M. A. Barton, Cardiff University
M. Bastarrika, University of Salerno
K. Bayer, University of Texas at Brownsville
J. Betzwieser, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Abstract
A search for periodic gravitational waves, from sources such as isolated rapidly spinning neutron stars, was carried out using 510 h of data from the fourth LIGO science run (S4). The search was for quasimonochromatic waves in the frequency range from 50 to 1500 Hz, with a linear frequency drift ḟ (measured at the solar system barycenter) in the range -f/τ<ḟ<0. 1f/τ, where the minimum spin-down age τ was 1000 yr for signals below 300 Hz and 10000 yr above 300 Hz. The main computational work of the search was distributed over approximately 100000 computers volunteered by the general public. This large computing power allowed the use of a relatively long coherent integration time of 30 h, despite the large parameter space searched. No statistically significant signals were found. The sensitivity of the search is estimated, along with the fraction of parameter space that was vetoed because of contamination by instrumental artifacts. In the 100 to 200 Hz band, more than 90% of sources with dimensionless gravitational-wave strain amplitude greater than 10-23 would have been detected.
