First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

(LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO's first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far.

Original languageEnglish
Article number122006
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume96
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 15 2017
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation1607709, 1707965, 1708081, 1104371, 1458952, 1607585, 1700765, 1707835, 1404139, 1125897, 1606654, 1242090
National Science Foundation
Science and Technology Facilities CouncilST/N00003X/1, ST/J000019/1, ST/P000258/1, ST/H002006/1, ST/L000954/1, ST/M005844/1, PP/F001118/1, ST/J000345/1, ST/I000887/1, 1653071, ST/N000072/1, ST/I006277/1, ST/N005422/1, ST/N005716/1, PPA/G/S/2002/00652, ST/J000361/1, ST/N005406/1, Gravitational Waves, ST/G504284/1, ST/K000845/1, ST/I006285/1, ST/L003465/1, ST/I006242/1, 1654298, PP/F001096/1, ST/M006735/1, ST/I006269/1, ST/N000080/1, ST/I001085/1, ST/L000946/1, ST/N000633/1, ST/J00166X/1, ST/N005430/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung159922
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung

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