Published September 15, 2005 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Upper limits on gravitational wave bursts in LIGO's second science run

Creators

Abstract

We perform a search for gravitational wave bursts using data from the second science run of the LIGO detectors, using a method based on a wavelet time-frequency decomposition. This search is sensitive to bursts of duration much less than a second and with frequency content in the 100–1100 Hz range. It features significant improvements in the instrument sensitivity and in the analysis pipeline with respect to the burst search previously reported by LIGO. Improvements in the search method allow exploring weaker signals, relative to the detector noise floor, while maintaining a low false alarm rate, O(0.1) μHz. The sensitivity in terms of the root-sum-square (rss) strain amplitude lies in the range of hrss∼10^-20 - 10^-19  Hz^-1/2. No gravitational wave signals were detected in 9.98 days of analyzed data. We interpret the search result in terms of a frequentist upper limit on the rate of detectable gravitational wave bursts at the level of 0.26 events per day at 90% confidence level. We combine this limit with measurements of the detection efficiency for selected waveform morphologies in order to yield rate versus strength exclusion curves as well as to establish order-of-magnitude distance sensitivity to certain modeled astrophysical sources. Both the rate upper limit and its applicability to signal strengths improve our previously reported limits and reflect the most sensitive broad-band search for untriggered and unmodeled gravitational wave bursts to date.

Additional Information

© 2005 American Physical Society. Received 7 June 2005; published 8 September 2005. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the research by these agencies and by the Australian Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Department of Science and Technology of India, the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This document has been assigned LIGO Laboratory document number LIGO-P040040-A-R.

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Identifiers

Eprint ID
13020
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:ABBprd05b

Funding

NSF
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)
Max-Planck-Society
State of Niedersachsen/Germany
Australian Research Council
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India)
Department of Science and Technology (India)
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC)
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
Leverhulme Trust
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Research Corporation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Dates

Created
2009-02-05
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-03-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
TAPIR , LIGO , Physics Department
Other Numbering System Name
LIGO Document
Other Numbering System Identifier
LIGO-P040040-A-R