First LIGO Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Cosmic (Super)Strings

Authors

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration
Rodica M. Martin, Montclair State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-23-2009

Journal / Book Title

Physical Review D

Abstract

We report on a matched-filter search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic string cusps using LIGO data from the fourth science run (S4) which took place in February and March 2005. No gravitational waves were detected in 14.9 days of data from times when all three LIGO detectors were operating. We interpret the result in terms of a frequentist upper limit on the rate of gravitational wave bursts and use the limits on the rate to constrain the parameter space (string tension, reconnection probability, and loop sizes) of cosmic string models. Many grand unified theory-scale models (with string tension Gμ/c2≈10-6) can be ruled out at 90% confidence for reconnection probabilities p≤10-3 if loop sizes are set by gravitational back reaction.

Comments

This article is a collaboration between the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. Additional authors may be found on the publication.

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevD.80.062002

MSU Digital Commons Citation

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Martin, Rodica M., "First LIGO Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Cosmic (Super)Strings" (2009). Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 52.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/physics-astron-facpubs/52

Published Citation

Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Adhikari, R., Ajith, P., Allen, B., Allen, G., ... & Giardina, K. D. (2009). First LIGO search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic (super) strings. Physical Review D, 80(6), 062002.