Directional Limits on Persistent Gravitational Waves Using LIGO S5 Science Data

Creators: Abadie, J.; Drever, R. W. P.; Harms, J.; Boyle, M.; Chen, Y.; Luan, J.; Mino, Y.; Somiya, K.; Thorne, K. S.; Vallisneri, M.; Wen, L.; Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Adhikari, Rana X.; Ajith, P.; Anderson, S. B.; Araya, M. C.; Aronsson, M.; Aso, Y.; Ballmer, S.; Betzwieser, J.; Billingsley, G.; Black, E.; Blackburn, J. K.; Bork, R.; Brooks, A. F.; Cannon, K.; Cepeda, C.; Chalermsongsak, T.; Coyne, D. C.; Dannenberg, R.; Daubert, B.; Dergachev, V.; DeSalvo, R.; Driggers, J. C.; Ehrens, P.; Engel, R.; Etzel, T.; Gustafson, E. K.; Hanna, C.; Heefner, J.; Heptonstall, A. W.; Hodge, K. A.; Ivanov, A.; Kalmus, P.; Kells, W.; Keppel, D. G.; King, P. J.; Kondrashov, V.; Kozak, D.; Lazzarini, A.; Lindquist, P. E.; Mageswaran, M.; Mailand, K.; Mak, C.; Maros, E.; Marx, J. N.; McIntyre, G.; Meshkov, S.; Mitra, S.; Nash, T.; Ogin, G. H.; Osthelder, C.; Patel, P.; Pedraza, M.; Robertson, N. A.; Sannibale, V.; Searle, A. C.; Seifert, F.; Sengupta, A. S.; Singer, A.; Smith, M. R.; Stochino, A.; Taylor, R.; Torrie, C. I.; Turner, L.; Vass, S.; Villar, A. E.; Wallace, L.; Ward, R. L.; Whitcomb, S. E.; Willems, P. A.; Yamamoto, H.; Yeaton-Massey, D.; Zhang, L.; Zweizig, J.; Weinstein, Alan J.; LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration

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) strain^2 Hz^(-1) and 5-35×10^(-49) strain^2 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.

Additional Information

© 2011 American Physical Society. Received 9 October 2011; published 29 December 2011. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society, and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction and operation of the GEO600 detector, and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the research by these agencies and by the Australian Research Council, the International Science Linkages program of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of Italy, the Spanish Ministerio de Educacio´n y Ciencia, the Conselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio´ of the Govern de les Illes Balears, the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the FOCUS Programme of Foundation for Polish Science, the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Carnegie Trust, the Leverhulme Trust, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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