No Arabic abstract
We present a search for continuous gravitational waves emitted by neutron stars in binary systems conducted on data from the early third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors using the semicoherent, GPU-accelerated, BinarySkyHough pipeline. The search analyzes the most sensitive frequency band of the LIGO detectors, 50 - 300 Hz. Binary orbital parameters are split into four regions, comprising orbital periods of 3 - 45 days and projected semimajor axes of 2 - 40 light-seconds. No detections are reported. We estimate the sensitivity of the search using simulated continuous wave signals, achieving the most sensitive results to date across the analyzed parameter space.
Rapidly spinning neutron stars are promising sources of persistent, continuous gravitational waves. Detecting such a signal would allow probing of the physical properties of matter under extreme conditions. A significant fraction of the known pulsar population belongs to binary systems. Searching for unknown neutron stars in binary systems requires specialized algorithms to address unknown orbital frequency modulations. We present a search for continuous gravitational waves emitted by neutron stars in binary systems in early data from the third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors using the semicoherent, GPU-accelerated, BinarySkyHough pipeline. The search analyzes the most sensitive frequency band of the LIGO detectors, 50 - 300 Hz. Binary orbital parameters are split into four regions, comprising orbital periods of 3 - 45 days and projected semimajor axes of 2 - 40 light-seconds. No detections are reported. We estimate the sensitivity of the search using simulated continuous wave signals, achieving the most sensitive results to date across the analyzed parameter space.
We report on an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in the frequency band 20-2000,Hz and with a frequency time derivative in the range of $[-1.0, +0.1]times10^{-8}$,Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby, spinning and slightly non-axisymmetric isolated neutron star in our galaxy. This search uses the LIGO data from the first six months of Advanced LIGOs and Advanced Virgos third observational run, O3. No periodic gravitational wave signals are observed, and 95% confidence-level (CL) frequentist upper limits are placed on their strengths. The lowest upper limits on worst-case (linearly polarized) strain amplitude $h_0$ are $~1.7times10^{-25}$ near 200,Hz. For a circularly polarized source (most favorable orientation), the lowest upper limits are $sim6.3times10^{-26}$. These strict frequentist upper limits refer to all sky locations and the entire range of frequency derivative values. For a population-averaged ensemble of sky locations and stellar orientations, the lowest 95% CL upper limits on the strain amplitude are $sim1.times10^{-25}$. These upper limits improve upon our previously published all-sky results, with the greatest improvement (factor of $sim$2) seen at higher frequencies, in part because quantum squeezing has dramatically improved the detector noise level relative to the second observational run, O2. These limits are the most constraining to date over most of the parameter space searched.
We present the first results of an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from unknown spinning neutron stars in binary systems using LIGO and Virgo data. Using a specially developed analysis program, the TwoSpect algorithm, the search was carried out on data from the sixth LIGO Science Run and the second and third Virgo Science Runs. The search covers a range of frequencies from 20 Hz to 520 Hz, a range of orbital periods from 2 to ~2,254 h and a frequency- and period-dependent range of frequency modulation depths from 0.277 to 100 mHz. This corresponds to a range of projected semi-major axes of the orbit from ~0.6e-3 ls to ~6,500 ls assuming the orbit of the binary is circular. While no plausible candidate gravitational wave events survive the pipeline, upper limits are set on the analyzed data. The most sensitive 95% confidence upper limit obtained on gravitational wave strain is 2.3e-24 at 217 Hz, assuming the source waves are circularly polarized. Although this search has been optimized for circular binary orbits, the upper limits obtained remain valid for orbital eccentricities as large as 0.9. In addition, upper limits are placed on continuous gravitational wave emission from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1 between 20 Hz and 57.25 Hz.
We report on an all-sky search with the LIGO detectors for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency range 50--1100 Hz and with the frequencys time derivative in the range -5.0E-9 Hz/s to zero. Data from the first eight months of the fifth LIGO science run (S5) have been used in this search, which is based on a semi-coherent method (PowerFlux) of summing strain power. Observing no evidence of periodic gravitational radiation, we report 95% confidence-level upper limits on radiation emitted by any unknown isolated rotating neutron stars within the search range. Strain limits below 1.E-24 are obtained over a 200-Hz band, and the sensitivity improvement over previous searches increases the spatial volume sampled by an average factor of about 100 over the entire search band. For a neutron star with nominal equatorial ellipticity of 1.0E-6, the search is sensitive to distances as great as 500 pc--a range that could encompass many undiscovered neutron stars, albeit only a tiny fraction of which would likely be rotating fast enough to be accessible to LIGO. This ellipticity is at the upper range thought to be sustainable by conventional neutron stars and well below the maximum sustainable by a strange quark star.
We report on an all-sky search with the LIGO detectors for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency range 50-1000 Hz and with the frequencys time derivative in the range -1.0E-8 Hz/s to zero. Data from the fourth LIGO science run (S4) have been used in this search. Three different semi-coherent methods of transforming and summing strain power from Short Fourier Transforms (SFTs) of the calibrated data have been used. The first, known as StackSlide, averages normalized power from each SFT. A weighted Hough scheme is also developed and used, and which also allows for a multi-interferometer search. The third method, known as PowerFlux, is a variant of the StackSlide method in which the power is weighted before summing. In both the weighted Hough and PowerFlux methods, the weights are chosen according to the noise and detector antenna-pattern to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio. The respective advantages and disadvantages of these methods are discussed. Observing no evidence of periodic gravitational radiation, we report upper limits; we interpret these as limits on this radiation from isolated rotating neutron stars. The best population-based upper limit with 95% confidence on the gravitational-wave strain amplitude, found for simulated sources distributed isotropically across the sky and with isotropically distributed spin-axes, is 4.28E-24 (near 140 Hz). Strict upper limits are also obtained for small patches on the sky for best-case and worst-case inclinations of the spin axes.