First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data
Source
Physical Review D
ISSN
24700010
Date Issued
2017-12-15
Author(s)
Abbott, B. P.
Abbott, R.
Abbott, T. D.
Acernese, F.
Ackley, K.
Adams, C.
Adams, T.
Addesso, P.
Adhikari, R. X.
Adya, V. B.
Affeldt, C.
Afrough, M.
Agarwal, B.
Agathos, M.
Agatsuma, K.
Aggarwal, N.
Aguiar, O. D.
Aiello, L.
Ain, A.
Allen, B.
Allen, G.
Allocca, A.
Altin, P. A.
Amato, A.
Ananyeva, A.
Anderson, S. B.
Anderson, W. G.
Angelova, S. V.
Antier, S.
Appert, S.
Arai, K.
Araya, M. C.
Areeda, J. S.
Arnaud, N.
Arun, K. G.
Ascenzi, S.
Ashton, G.
Ast, M.
Aston, S. M.
Astone, P.
Atallah, D. V.
Aufmuth, P.
Aulbert, C.
Aultoneal, K.
Austin, C.
Avila-Alvarez, A.
Babak, S.
Bacon, P.
Bader, M. K.M.
Bae, S.
Baker, P. T.
Baldaccini, F.
Ballardin, G.
Ballmer, S. W.
Banagiri, S.
Barayoga, J. C.
Barclay, S. E.
Barish, B. C.
Barker, D.
Barkett, K.
Barone, F.
Barr, B.
Barsotti, L.
Barsuglia, M.
Barta, D.
Bartlett, J.
Bartos, I.
Bassiri, R.
Basti, A.
Batch, J. C.
Bawaj, M.
Bayley, J. C.
Bazzan, M.
Bécsy, B.
Beer, C.
Bejger, M.
Belahcene, I.
Bell, A. S.
Berger, B. K.
Bergmann, G.
Bero, J. J.
Berry, C. P.L.
Bersanetti, D.
Bertolini, A.
Betzwieser, J.
Bhagwat, S.
Bhandare, R.
Bilenko, I. A.
Billingsley, G.
Billman, C. R.
Birch, J.
Birney, R.
Birnholtz, O.
Biscans, S.
Biscoveanu, S.
Bisht, A.
Bitossi, M.
Biwer, C.
Bizouard, M. A.
Blackburn, J. K.
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.