Authors

J. Abadie, California Institute of Technology
B. P. Abbott, California Institute of Technology
R. Abbott, California Institute of Technology
T. D. Abbott, California State University, Fullerton
M. Abernathy, University of Glasgow
T. Accadia, Université Savoie Mont Blanc
F. Acernese, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli
C. Adams, LIGO Livingston
R. Adhikari, California Institute of Technology
C. Affeldt, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
P. Ajith, California Institute of Technology
B. Allen, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
G. S. Allen, Stanford University
E. Amador Ceron, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
D. Amariutei, University of Florida
R. S. Amin, Louisiana State University
S. B. Anderson, California Institute of Technology
W. G. Anderson, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
K. Arai, California Institute of Technology
M. A. Arain, University of Florida
M. C. Araya, California Institute of Technology
S. M. Aston, University of Birmingham
P. Astone, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - INFN
D. Atkinson, LIGO Hanford
P. Aufmuth, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
C. Aulbert, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
B. E. Aylott, University of Birmingham
S. Babak, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
P. Baker, Montana State University
G. Ballardin, European Gravitational Observatory (EGO)
S. Ballmer, Syracuse University
D. Barker, LIGO Hanford
F. Barone, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-5-2012

Abstract

We report on an all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency band 50-800Hz and with the frequency time derivative in the range of 0 through -6×10-9Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby spinning and slightly nonaxisymmetric isolated neutron star in our Galaxy. After recent improvements in the search program that yielded a 10× increase in computational efficiency, we have searched in two years of data collected during LIGO's fifth science run and have obtained the most sensitive all-sky upper limits on gravitational-wave strain to date. Near 150Hz our upper limit on worst-case linearly polarized strain amplitude h0 is 1×10-24, while at the high end of our frequency range we achieve a worst-case upper limit of 3.8×10-24 for all polarizations and sky locations. These results constitute a factor of 2 improvement upon previously published data. A new detection pipeline utilizing a loosely coherent algorithm was able to follow up weaker outliers, increasing the volume of space where signals can be detected by a factor of 10, but has not revealed any gravitational-wave signals. The pipeline has been tested for robustness with respect to deviations from the model of an isolated neutron star, such as caused by a low-mass or long-period binary companion. © 2012 American Physical Society.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

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