We carry out two searches for periodic gravitational waves using the most sensitive few hours of data from the second LIGO science run. Both searches exploit fully coherent matched filtering and cover wide areas of parameter space, an innovation over previous analyses which requires considerable algorithm development and computational power. The first search is targeted at isolated, previously unknown neutron stars, covers the entire sky in the frequency band 160–728.8 Hz, and assumes a frequency derivative of less than $4\times {10}^{-10}\mathrm{Hz}/\mathrm{s}$. The second search targets the accreting neutron star in the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1 and covers the frequency bands 464–484 Hz and 604–624 Hz as well as the two relevant binary orbit parameters. Because of the high computational cost of these searches we limit the analyses to the most sensitive 10 hours and 6 hours of data, respectively. Given the limited sensitivity and duration of the analyzed data set, we do not attempt deep follow-up studies. Rather we concentrate on demonstrating the data analysis method on a real data set and present our results as upper limits over large volumes of the parameter space. In order to achieve this, we look for coincidences in parameter space between the Livingston and Hanford 4-km interferometers. For isolated neutron stars our 95% confidence level upper limits on the gravitational wave strain amplitude range from $6.6\times {10}^{-23}$ to $1\times {10}^{-21}$ across the frequency band; for Scorpius X-1 they range from $1.7\times {10}^{-22}$ to $1.3\times {10}^{-21}$ across the two 20-Hz frequency bands. The upper limits presented in this paper are the first broadband wide parameter space upper limits on periodic gravitational waves from coherent search techniques. The methods developed here lay the foundations for upcoming hierarchical searches of more sensitive data which may detect astrophysical signals.

Submitted to Cornell University's online archive www.arXiv.org in 2008 by Szabolcs M\'arka. Post-print sourced from www.arxiv.org.B. Abbott...A. Brooks... D. J. Hosken... D. Mudge...J. Munch... D. J. Ottaway... P. J. Veitch... et al

We report on a search for gravitational waves from the coalescence of compact binaries during the third and fourth LIGO science runs. The search focused on gravitational waves generated during the inspiral phase of the binary evolution. In our analysis, we considered three categories of compact binary systems, ordered by mass: (i) primordial black hole binaries with masses in the range $0.35M_{\odot }<m_1$, $m_2<1.0M_{\odot }$, (ii) binary neutron stars with masses in the range $1.0M_{\odot }<m_1$, $m_2<3.0M_{\odot }$, and (iii) binary black holes with masses in the range $3.0M_{\odot }<m_1$, $m_2<m_{\max }$ with the additional constraint $m_1+m_2<m_{\max }$, where $m_{\max }$ was set to $40.0M_{\odot }$ and $80.0M_{\odot }$ in the third and fourth science runs, respectively. Although the detectors could probe to distances as far as tens of Mpc, no gravitational-wave signals were identified in the 1364 hours of data we analyzed. Assuming a binary population with a Gaussian distribution around $0.75-0.75M_{\odot }$, $1.4-1.4M_{\odot }$, and $5.0-5.0M_{\odot }$, we derived 90%-confidence upper limit rates of $4.9{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}{L}_{10}^{-1}$ for primordial black hole binaries, $1.2{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}{L}_{10}^{-1}$ for binary neutron stars, and $0.5{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}{L}_{10}^{-1}$ for stellar mass binary black holes, where $L_{10}$ is ${10}^{10}$ times the blue-light luminosity of the Sun.

We present upper limits on the gravitational wave emission from 78 radio pulsars based on data from the third and fourth science runs of the LIGO and GEO 600 gravitational wave detectors. The data from both runs have been combined coherently to maximize sensitivity. For the first time, pulsars within binary (or multiple) systems have been included in the search by taking into account the signal modulation due to their orbits. Our upper limits are therefore the first measured for 56 of these pulsars. For the remaining 22, our results improve on previous upper limits by up to a factor of 10. For example, our tightest upper limit on the gravitational strain is $2.6\times {10}^{-25}$ for PSR $\mathrm{J}1603-7202$, and the equatorial ellipticity of PSR $\mathrm{J}2124–3358$ is less than ${10}^{-6}$. Furthermore, our strain upper limit for the Crab pulsar is only 2.2 times greater than the fiducial spin-down limit.

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 frequency’s time derivative in the range $-1\times {10}^{-8}\mathrm{Hz}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ to zero. Data from the fourth LIGO science run (S4) have been used in this search. Three different semicoherent 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, 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 $4.28\times {10}^{-24}$ (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.