0000000000153515
AUTHOR
A. W. Jones
All-sky search in early O3 LIGO data for continuous gravitational-wave signals from unknown neutron stars in binary systems
Rapidly spinning neutron stars are promising sources of continuous gravitational waves. Detecting such a signal would allow probing of the physical properties of matter under extreme conditions. A significant fraction of the known pulsar population belongs to binary systems. Searching for unknown neutron stars in binary systems requires specialized algorithms to address unknown orbital frequency modulations. We present a search for continuous gravitational waves emitted by neutron stars in binary systems in early data from the third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors using the semicoherent, GPU-accelerated, binaryskyhough pipeline. The search analyzes the most s…
Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's first three observing runs
We report results from searches for anisotropic stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from the first three observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. For the first time, we include Virgo data in our analysis and run our search with a new efficient pipeline called {\tt PyStoch} on data folded over one sidereal day. We use gravitational-wave radiometry (broadband and narrow band) to produce sky maps of stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds and to search for gravitational waves from point sources. A spherical harmonic decomposition method is employed to look for gravitational-wave emission from spatially-extended sources. Neither technique found eviden…
All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the first Advanced LIGO observing run
Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T17:45:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-03-22 Australian Research Council Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India Department of Science and Technology, India Science AMP; Engineering Research Board (SERB), India Ministry of Human Resource Development, India Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion Vicepresidencia i Conselleria d'Innovacio, Recerca i Turisme Conselleria d'Educacio i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears Conselleria d'Educacio, Investigacio, Cultura i Esport de la Generalitat Valenciana National Science Centre of Poland Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Russian Foundation for Basic Rese…
First year performance of the IceCube neutrino telescope
The first sensors of the IceCube neutrino observatory were deployed at the South Pole during the austral summer of 2004-2005 and have been producing data since February 2005. One string of 60 sensors buried in the ice and a surface array of eight ice Cherenkov tanks took data until December 2005 when deployment of the next set of strings and tanks began. We have analyzed these data, demonstrating that the performance of the system meets or exceeds design requirements. Times are determined across the whole array to a relative precision of better than 3 ns, allowing reconstruction of muon tracks and light bursts in the ice, of air-showers in the surface array and of events seen in coincidence…
Erratum: “Searches for Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars at Two Harmonics in 2015–2017 LIGO Data” (2019, ApJ, 879, 10)
Two analysis errors have been identified that affect the results for a handful of the high-value pulsars given in Table 1 of Abbott et al. (2019). One affects the Bayesian analysis for the five pulsars that glitched during the analysis period, and the other affects the 5n-vector analysis for J0711-6830. Updated results after correcting the errors are shown in Table 1, which now supersedes the results given for those pulsars in Table 1 of Abbott et al. (2019). Updated versions of figures can be seen in Figures 1-4. Bayesian analysis.-For the glitching pulsars, the signal phase evolution caused by the glitch was wrongly applied twice and was therefore not consistent with our expected model of…
The IceCube data acquisition system: Signal capture, digitization, and timestamping
IceCube is a km-scale neutrino observatory under construction at the South Pole with sensors both in the deep ice (InIce) and on the surface (IceTop). The sensors, called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), detect, digitize and timestamp the signals from optical Cherenkov-radiation photons. The DOM Main Board (MB) data acquisition subsystem is connected to the central DAQ in the IceCube Laboratory (ICL) by a single twisted copper wire-pair and transmits packetized data on demand. Time calibration is maintained throughout the array by regular transmission to the DOMs of precisely timed analog signals, synchronized to a central GPS-disciplined clock. The design goals and consequent features, func…
NEUTRINO ASTRONOMY AND COSMIC RAYS AT THE SOUTH POLE: LATEST RESULTS FROM AMANDA AND PERSPECTIVES FOR ICECUBE
The AMANDA neutrino telescope has been in operation at the South Pole since 1996. The present final array configuration, operational since 2000, consists of 677 photomultiplier tubes arranged in 19 strings, buried at depths between 1500 and 2000 m in the ice. The most recent results on a multi-year search for point sources of neutrinos will be shown. The study of events triggered in coincidence with the surface array SPASE and AMANDA provided a result on cosmic ray composition. Expected improvements from IceCube/IceTop will also be discussed.
Sensitivity of the IceCube detector to astrophysical sources of high energy muon neutrinos
We present the results of a Monte-Carlo study of the sensitivity of the planned IceCube detector to predicted fluxes of muon neutrinos at TeV to PeV energies. A complete simulation of the detector and data analysis is used to study the detector's capability to search for muon neutrinos from sources such as active galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. We study the effective area and the angular resolution of the detector as a function of muon energy and angle of incidence. We present detailed calculations of the sensitivity of the detector to both diffuse and pointlike neutrino emissions, including an assessment of the sensitivity to neutrinos detected in coincidence with gamma-ray burst observatio…
IceCube contributions to the XIV International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2006)
IceCube contributions to the XIV International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2006) Weihai, China - August 15-22
GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150 M⊙
LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration: et al.
Search for intermediate mass black hole binaries in the first and second observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo network
Gravitational wave astronomy has been firmly established with the detection of gravitational waves from the merger of ten stellar mass binary black holes and a neutron star binary. This paper reports on the all-sky search for gravitational waves from intermediate mass black hole binaries in the first and second observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo network. The search uses three independent algorithms: two based on matched filtering of the data with waveform templates of gravitational wave signals from compact binaries, and a third, model-independent algorithm that employs no signal model for the incoming signal. No intermediate mass black hole binary event was detected in this sear…
The IceCube prototype string in Amanda
The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (Amanda) is a high-energy neutrino telescope. It is a lattice of optical modules (OM) installed in the clear ice below the South Pole Station. Each OM contains a photomultiplier tube (PMT) that detects photons of Cherenkov light generated in the ice by muons and electrons. IceCube is a cubic-kilometer-sized expansion of Amanda currently being built at the South Pole. In IceCube the PMT signals are digitized already in the optical modules and transmitted to the surface. A prototype string of 41 OMs equipped with this new all-digital technology was deployed in the Amanda array in the year 2000. In this paper we describe the technology and demonst…
Limits on the muon flux from neutralino annihilations at the center of the Earth with AMANDA
A search has been performed for nearly vertically upgoing neutrino-induced muons with the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), using data taken over the three year period 1997–99. No excess above the expected atmospheric neutrino background has been found. Upper limits at 90% confidence level have been set on the annihilation rate of neutralinos at the center of the Earth, as well as on the muon flux at AMANDA induced by neutrinos created by the annihilation products.
Multiyear search for a diffuse flux of muon neutrinos with AMANDA-II
A search for TeV - PeV muon neutrinos from unresolved sources was performed on AMANDA-II data collected between 2000 and 2003 with an equivalent livetime of 807 days. This diffuse analysis sought to find an extraterrestrial neutrino flux from sources with non-thermal components. The signal is expected to have a harder spectrum than the atmospheric muon and neutrino backgrounds. Since no excess of events was seen in the data over the expected background, an upper limit of E^{2}\Phi_{90% C.L.} < 7.4 x 10^{-8} GeV cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} is placed on the diffuse flux of muon neutrinos with a \Phi \propto E^{-2} spectrum in the energy range 16 TeV to 2.5 PeV. This is currently the most sensitive…
Five years of searches for point sources of astrophysical neutrinos with the AMANDA-II neutrino telescope
We report the results of a five-year survey of the northern sky to search for point sources of high energy neutrinos. The search was performed on the data collected with the AMANDA-II neutrino telescope in the years 2000 to 2004, with a live-time of 1001 days. The sample of selected events consists of 4282 upward going muon tracks with high reconstruction quality and an energy larger than about 100 GeV. We found no indication of point sources of neutrinos and set 90% confidence level flux upper limits for an all-sky search and also for a catalog of 32 selected sources. For the all-sky search, our average (over declination and right ascension) experimentally observed upper limit \Phi^{0}=(E/…
All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars using Advanced LIGO O2 data
We present results of an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves (CWs), which can be produced by fast-spinning neutron stars with an asymmetry around their rotation axis, using data from the second observing run of the Advanced LIGO detectors. We employ three different semi-coherent methods ($\textit{FrequencyHough}$, $\textit{SkyHough}$, and $\textit{Time-Domain $\mathcal{F}$-statistic}$) to search in a gravitational-wave frequency band from 20 to 1922 Hz and a first frequency derivative from $-1\times10^{-8}$ to $2\times10^{-9}$ Hz/s. None of these searches has found clear evidence for a CW signal, so we present upper limits on the gravitational-wave strain amplitude $h_0$ (the …
GW190412: Observation of a binary-black-hole coalescence with asymmetric masses
LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration: et al.
Gravitational-wave Constraints on the Equatorial Ellipticity of Millisecond Pulsars
We present a search for continuous gravitational waves from five radio pulsars, comprising three recycled pulsars (PSR J0437-4715, PSR J0711-6830, and PSR J0737-3039A) and two young pulsars: the Crab pulsar (J0534+2200) and the Vela pulsar (J0835-4510). We use data from the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo combined with data from their first and second observing runs. For the first time, we are able to match (for PSR J0437-4715) or surpass (for PSR J0711-6830) the indirect limits on gravitational-wave emission from recycled pulsars inferred from their observed spin-downs, and constrain their equatorial ellipticities to be less than 10-8. For each of the five pulsars, we perfor…
On the selection of AGN neutrino source candidates for a source stacking analysis with neutrino telescopes
The sensitivity of a search for sources of TeV neutrinos can be improved by grouping potential sources together into generic classes in a procedure that is known as source stacking. In this paper, we define catalogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and use them to perform a source stacking analysis. The grouping of AGN into classes is done in two steps: first, AGN classes are defined, then, sources to be stacked are selected assuming that a potential neutrino flux is linearly correlated with the photon luminosity in a certain energy band (radio, IR, optical, keV, GeV, TeV). Lacking any secure detailed knowledge on neutrino production in AGN, this correlation is motivated by hadronic AGN mode…
Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3a
Abbott, R., et al. (LIGO and VIRGO Collaboration)
A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo
This paper presents the gravitational-wave measurement of the Hubble constant (H 0) using the detections from the first and second observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detector network. The presence of the transient electromagnetic counterpart of the binary neutron star GW170817 led to the first standard-siren measurement of H 0. Here we additionally use binary black hole detections in conjunction with galaxy catalogs and report a joint measurement. Our updated measurement is H 0 = km s-1 Mpc-1 (68.3% of the highest density posterior interval with a flat-in-log prior) which is an improvement by a factor of 1.04 (about 4%) over the GW170817-only value of km s-1 Mpc-1. A significant …
All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the second Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo run
We present the results of a search for short-duration gravitational-wave transients in the data from the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We search for gravitational-wave transients with a duration of milliseconds to approximately one second in the 32-4096 Hz frequency band with minimal assumptions about the signal properties, thus targeting a wide variety of sources. We also perform a matched-filter search for gravitational-wave transients from cosmic string cusps for which the waveform is well-modeled. The unmodeled search detected gravitational waves from several binary black hole mergers which have been identified by previous analyses. No other significant event…
Search for Subsolar-Mass Ultracompact Binaries in Advanced LIGO's First Observing Run
We present the first Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo search for ultracompact binary systems with component masses between 0.2 $M_\odot$ - 1.0 $M_\odot$ using data taken between September 12, 2015 and January 19, 2016. We find no viable gravitational wave candidates. Our null result constrains the coalescence rate of monochromatic (delta function) distributions of non-spinning (0.2 $M_\odot$, 0.2 $M_\odot$) ultracompact binaries to be less than $1.0 \times 10^6 \text{Gpc}^{-3} \text{yr}^{-1}$ and the coalescence rate of a similar distribution of (1.0 $M_\odot$, 1.0 $M_\odot$) ultracompact binaries to be less than $1.9 \times 10^4 \text{Gpc}^{-3} \text{yr}^{-1}$ (at 90 percent confidence). N…
Search for Gravitational-wave Signals Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts during the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
We present the results of targeted searches for gravitational-wave transients associated with gamma-ray bursts during the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, which took place from 2016 November to 2017 August. We have analyzed 98 gamma-ray bursts using an unmodeled search method that searches for generic transient gravitational waves and 42 with a modeled search method that targets compact-binary mergers as progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts. Both methods clearly detect the previously reported binary merger signal GW170817, with p-values of <9.38 10-6 (modeled) and 3.1 10-4 (unmodeled). We do not find any significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associate…
Status of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
Abstract The IceCube neutrino telescope, to be constructed near the Antarctic South Pole, represents the next generation of neutrino telescope. Its large 1 km3 size will make it uniquely sensitive to the detection of neutrinos from astrophysical sources. The current design of the detector is presented. The basic performance of the detector and its ability to search for neutrinos from various astrophysical sources has been studied using detailed simulations and is discussed.