Gravitational waves from known pulsars: Results from the initial detector era

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration & The Virgo Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

134 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.

Original languageEnglish
Article number119
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume785
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 Apr 2014
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation1104371, 0905184, 1004822, 1307020, 1068549, 1307429, 0970074, 1204371, 1067985, 1305864, 1307423, 1205882
Science and Technology Facilities CouncilPPA/G/S/2002/00652, ST/J000361/1, Gravitational Waves, ST/K000845/1, ST/I006285/1, ST/L000954/1, ST/L003465/1, ST/I006242/1, ST/J00135X/1, ST/L000768/1, PP/F001118/1, ST/I006269/1, ST/L000938/1, ST/L000946/1, ST/J00166X/1, ST/L000911/1

    Keywords

    • gravitational waves
    • pulsars: general

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