Upper and lower limits on the Crab pulsar's astrophysical parameters set from gravitational wave observations by LIGO: braking index and energy considerations
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO) has recently reached the end of its fifth science run (S5), having collected more than a year worth of data. Analysis of the data is still ongoing but a positive detection of gravitational waves, while possible, is not realistically expected for most likely sources. This is particularly true for what concerns gravitational waves from known pulsars. In fact, even under the most optimistic (and not very realistic) assumption that all the pulsar's observed spin-down is due to gravitational waves, the gravitational wave strain at earth from all the known isolated pulsars (with the only notable exception of the Crab pulsar) would not be strong enough to be detectable by existing detectors. By August 2006, LIGO had produced enough data for a coherent integration capable to extract signal from noise that was weaker than the one expected from the Crab pulsar's spin-down limit. No signal was detected, but beating the spin-down limit is a considerable achievement for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). It is customary to translate the upper limit on strain from a pulsar into a more astrophysically significant upper limit on ellipticity. Once the spin-down limit has been beaten, it is possible to release the constraint that all the spin-down is due to gravitational wave emission. A more complete model with diverse braking mechanisms can be used to set limits on several astrophysical parameters of the pulsar. This paper shows possible values of such parameters for the Crab pulsar given the current limit on gravitational waves from this neutron star.
We describe a search underway for periodic gravitational waves from the central compact object in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The object is the youngest likely neutron star in the Galaxy. Its position is well known, but the object does not pulse in any electromagnetic radiation band and thus presents a challenge in searching the parameter space of frequency and frequency derivatives. We estimate that a fully coherent search can, with a reasonable amount of time on a computing cluster, achieve a sensitivity at which it is theoretically possible (though not likely) to observe a signal ev…
We present the first searches for gravitational waves from r-modes of the Crab pulsar, coherently and separately integrating data from three stretches of the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO using the F-statistic. The second run was divided in two by a glitch of the pulsar roughly halfway through. The frequencies and derivatives searched were based on radio measurements of the pulsar's spin-down parameters as described in Caride et al., Phys. Rev. D 100, 064013 (2019). We did not find any evidence of gravitational waves. Our best 90% confidence upper limits on gravitational wave intri…
Gravitational waves (GWs) can offer a novel window into the structure and dynamics of neutron stars. Here we present the first search for long-duration quasi-monochromatic GW transients triggered by pulsar glitches. We focus on two glitches observed in radio timing of the Vela pulsar (PSR J0835-4510) on 12 December 2016 and the Crab pulsar (PSR J0534+2200) on 27 March 2017, during the Advanced LIGO second observing run (O2). We assume the GW frequency lies within a narrow band around twice the spin frequency as known from radio observatons. Using the fully-coherent transient-enabled F-statisti…
We present the first search for gravitational waves from the coalescence of stellar mass and sub-solar mass black holes with masses between $20 - 100~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and $0.01 - 1~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}~($10 - 10^3$~\mathrm{M}_{J})$, respectively. The observation of a single sub-solar mass black hole would establish the existence of primordial black holes and a possible component of dark matter. We search the $\sim 164$ days of public LIGO data from 2015-2017 when LIGO-Hanford and LIGO-Livingston were simultaneously observing. We find no significant candidate gravitational-wave signals. Using …
A strategy is devised for a semi-coherent cross-correlation search for a young neutron star in the supernova remnant SNR 1987A, using science data from the Initial LIGO and/or Virgo detectors. An astrophysical model for the gravitational wave phase is introduced which describes the star's spin down in terms of its magnetic field strength $B$ and ellipticity $ε$, instead of its frequency derivatives. The model accurately tracks the gravitational wave phase from a rapidly decelerating neutron star under the restrictive but computationally unavoidable assumption of constant braking index, an issu…
Due to their small mass, subsolar mass black hole binaries would have to be primordial in origin instead of the result of stellar evolution. Soon after formation in the early universe, primordial black holes can form binaries after decoupling from the cosmic expansion. Alternatively, primordial black holes as dark matter could also form binaries in the late universe due to dynamical encounters and gravitational-wave braking. A significant feature for this channel is the possibility that some sources retain nonzero eccentricity in the LIGO/Virgo band. Assuming all dark matter is primordial blac…
We show that there is a direct relation between upper limits on (or potential future measurements of) the m = 2 quadrupole moments of slowly rotating neutron stars and the l = m = 2 deformation of the star's surface, in full general relativity, to first order in the perturbation. This relation only depends on the star's structure through its mass and radius. All one has to assume about the star's constituents is that the stress-energy tensor at its surface is that of a perfect fluid, which will be true with good accuracy in almost all the situations of interest, and that the magnetic field con…
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 GEO600 gravitational wave detectors. The data from both runs have been combined coherently to maximise 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 e…
We estimate the maximum equatorial ellipticity sustainable by compact stars composed of crystalline color-superconducting quark matter. For the theoretically allowed range of the gap parameter $Δ$, the maximum ellipticity could be as large as $10^{-2}$, which is about 4 orders of magnitude larger than the tightest upper limit obtained by the recent science runs of the LIGO and GEO600 gravitational wave detectors based on the data from 78 radio pulsars. We point out that the current gravitational-wave strain upper limit already has some implications for the gap parameter. In particular, the upp…
We discuss the unique spin evolution of the young X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910, a system in which the regular spin down is interrupted by glitches every few months. Drawing on the complete timing data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE, from 1999-2011), we argue that a trend in the inter-glitch behaviour points to an effective braking index close to $n=7$, much larger than expected. This value is interesting because it would accord with the neutron star spinning down due to gravitational waves from an unstable r-mode. We discuss to what extent this, admittedly speculative, scenario may …
Neutron stars may harbour the true ground state of matter in the form of strange quark matter. If present, this type of matter is expected to be a color superconductor, a consequence of quark pairing with respect to the color/flavor degrees of freedom. The stellar magnetic field threading the quark core becomes a color-magnetic admixture and, in the event that superconductivity is of type II, leads to the formation of color-magnetic vortices. In this Letter we show that the volume-averaged color-magnetic vortex tension force should naturally lead to a significant degree of non-axisymmetry in s…
By now many gravitational wave (GW) signals have been detected by LIGO and Virgo, with the waves reaching earth directly from their respective sources. These waves will also travel to different pulsars and will cause (tiny) transient deformations in the pulsar shape. Some of us have recently shown that the resultant transient change in the pulsar moment of inertia may leave an observable imprint on the pulsar signals as detected on earth, especially at resonance. The pulsars may thus act as remotely stationed Weber gravitational wave detectors. This allows us to revisit the past GW events via …
The gravitational wave emission by a distorted rotating fluid star is computed. The distortion is supposed to be symmetric around some axis inclined with respect to the rotation axis. In the general case, the gravitational radiation is emitted at two frequencies: $Ω$ and $2Ω$, where $Ω$ is the rotation frequency. The obtained formulæ are applied to the specific case of a neutron star distorted by its own magnetic field. Assuming that the period derivative $\dot P$ of pulsars is a measure of their magnetic dipole moment, the gravitational wave amplitude can be related to the observable paramete…
We present direct upper limits on gravitational wave emission from the Crab pulsar using data from the first nine months of the fifth science run of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). These limits are based on two searches. In the first we assume that the gravitational wave emission follows the observed radio timing, giving an upper limit on gravitational wave emission that beats indirect limits inferred from the spin-down and braking index of the pulsar and the energetics of the nebula. In the second we allow for a small mismatch between the gravitational and radi…
We present a search for gravitational waves from 116 known millisecond and young pulsars using data from the fifth science run of the LIGO detectors. For this search ephemerides overlapping the run period were obtained for all pulsars using radio and X-ray observations. We demonstrate an updated search method that allows for small uncertainties in the pulsar phase parameters to be included in the search. We report no signal detection from any of the targets and therefore interpret our results as upper limits on the gravitational wave signal strength. The most interesting limits are those for y…
We present a search for gravitational waves from 221 pulsars with rotation frequencies $\gtrsim 10$ Hz. We use advanced LIGO data from its first and second observing runs spanning 2015-2017, which provides the highest-sensitivity gravitational-wave data so far obtained. In this search we target emission from both the $l = m = 2$ mass quadrupole mode, with a frequency at twice that of the pulsar's rotation, and from the $l = 2$, $m = 1$ mode, with a frequency at the pulsar rotation frequency. The search finds no evidence for gravitational-wave emission from any pulsar at either frequency. For t…
We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave emission due to r-modes in the pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration observing run O3. PSR J0537-6910 is a young energetic X-ray pulsar and is the most frequent glitcher known. The inter-glitch braking index of the pulsar suggests that gravitational-wave emission due to r-mode oscillations may play an important role in the spin evolution of this pulsar. Theoretical models confirm this possibility and predict emission at a level that can be probed by ground-based detectors. In order to explore this scenario, we s…
We present a targeted search for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from 236 pulsars using data from the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo (O3) combined with data from the second observing run (O2). Searches were for emission from the $l=m=2$ mass quadrupole mode with a frequency at only twice the pulsar rotation frequency (single harmonic) and the $l=2, m=1,2$ modes with a frequency of both once and twice the rotation frequency (dual harmonic). No evidence of GWs was found so we present 95\% credible upper limits on the strain amplitudes $h_0$ for the single harmonic search along with l…
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 al…
Narrowband searches for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in the first two parts of the fourth LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA observing run
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)（马克斯·普朗克引力物理研究所（爱因斯坦研究所））；LIGO Hanford Observatory（LIGO汉福德观测站）；Dipartimento di Farmacia, Università di Salerno（萨莱诺大学药学系）；INFN, Sezione di Napoli（意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部）；University of Warwick（华威大学）；OzGrav, University of Western Australia（澳大利亚引力中心，西澳大学）；OzGrav, School of Physics & Astronomy, Monash University（澳大利亚引力中心，莫纳什大学物理与天文学学院）
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 cons…
We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave signals from the young, energetic X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the second and third observing runs of LIGO and Virgo. The search is enabled by a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained using NICER data. The NICER ephemeris has also been extended through 2020 October and includes three new glitches. PSR J0537-6910 has the largest spin-down luminosity of any pulsar and is highly active with regards to glitches. Analyses of its long-term and inter-glitch braking indices provided intriguing evidence that its spin-down energy bu…
