Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-20-2009
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 ˙�� (measured at the solar system barycenter) in the range −��/��<˙��<0.1��/��, where the minimum spin-down age �� was 1000 yr for signals below 300 Hz and 10 000 yr above 300 Hz. The main computational work of the search was distributed over approximately 100 000 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.
Recommended Citation
Abbott, B., Robert Abbott, Rana Adhikari, P. Ajith, Bruce Allen, Gabrielle Allen, R. Amin et al. "Einstein@ Home search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S4 data." Physical Review D—Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology 79, no. 2 (2009): 022001. http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.022001
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Publication Title
Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.79.022001
Comments
This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.