Directional Limits on Persistent Gravitational Waves Using LIGO S5 Science Data

Authors

J. Abadie
B. P. Abbott
Matthew Benacquista, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Teviet Creighton, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
R. Grosso
J. Li
Soma Mukherjee, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Soumya Mohanty, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Malik Rakhmanov, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Volker Quetschke, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Robert Stone, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Joseph D. Romano, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
B. Vaishnav

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2011

Abstract

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as stochastic backgrounds. We perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2−20×10−50  strain2 Hz−1 and 5−35×10−49  strain2 Hz−1 sr−1 for pointlike and extended sources, respectively. The latter result is the first of its kind. We also set 90% C.L. limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets including Sco X-1, SN 1987A and the Galactic center as low as ≈7×10−25 in the most sensitive frequency range near 160 Hz.

Comments

© 2011 American Physical Society. Original published version available at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.271102

Recommended Citation

Abadie, J., “Directional Limits on Persistent Gravitational Waves Using LIGO S5 Science Data.” Physical Review Letters, vol. 107, no. 27, American Physical Society, Dec. 2011, p. 271102, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.271102

Publication Title

Physical Review Letters

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.271102