Published July 15, 2021 | Version Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's first three observing runs

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Abstract

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 t ime, we include Virgo data in our analysis and run our search with a new efficient pipeline called 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 evidence of gravitational-wave signals. Hence we derive 95% confidence-level upper limit sky maps on the gravitational-wave energy flux from broadband point sources, ranging from F_(α,Θ) < (0.013−7.6)×10⁻⁸ erg cm⁻² s⁻¹ Hz⁻¹, and on the (normalized) gravitational-wave energy density spectrum from extended sources, ranging from Ω_(α,Θ) < (0.57−9.3)×10⁻⁹ sr⁻¹, depending on direction (Θ) and spectral index (α). These limits improve upon previous limits by factors of 2.9–3.5. We also set 95% confidence level upper limits on the frequency-dependent strain amplitudes of quasimonochromatic gravitational waves coming from three interesting targets, Scorpius X-1, SN 1987A and the Galactic Center, with best upper limits range from h₀ < (1.7−2.1)×10⁻²⁵, a factor of ≥ 2.0 improvement compared to previous stochastic radiometer searches.

Additional Information

© 2021 American Physical Society. Received 15 March 2021; accepted 17 June 2021; published 27 July 2021. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and Advanced LIGO as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector and the creation and support of the EGO consortium. The authors also gratefully acknowledge research support from these agencies as well as by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Department of Science and Technology, India, the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación, the Vicepresidència i Conselleria d'Innovació, Recerca i Turisme and the Conselleria d'Educació i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears, the Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana and the CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, the National Science Centre of Poland and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Science Foundation, the European Commission, the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA), the French Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO), the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS), Actions de Recherche Concertes (ARC) and Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (FWO), Belgium, the Paris Île-de-France Region, the National Research, Development and Innovation Office Hungary (NKFIH), the National Research Foundation of Korea, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada, Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovations, the International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Research Corporation, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan, the United States Department of Energy, and the Kavli Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, INFN and CNRS for provision of computational resources. This work was supported by MEXT, JSPS Leading-edge Research Infrastructure Program, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research No. 26000005, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas 2905: No. JP17H06358, No. JP17H06361, and No. JP17H06364, JSPS Core-to-Core Program A. Advanced Research Networks, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) No. 17H06133, the joint research program of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, National Research Foundation (NRF) and Computing Infrastructure Project of KISTI-GSDC in Korea, Academia Sinica (AS), AS Grid Center (ASGC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in Taiwan under grants including Grant No. AS-CDA-105-M06, Advanced Technology Center (ATC) of NAOJ, and Mechanical Engineering Center of KEK. We would also like to thank M. Alessandra Papa for providing useful comments that helped improve this paper. The sky map plots have made use of healpy and healpix package [99]. All plots have been prepared using Matplotlib [100]. We would like to thank all of the essential workers who put their health at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, without whom we would not have been able to complete this work. This document has been assigned the number LIGO-DCC-P2000500.

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Published - PhysRevD.104.022005.pdf

Submitted - 2103.08520.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
108498
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20210322-071243216

Related works

Funding

NSF
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Max-Planck-Society
State of Niedersachsen/Germany
Australian Research Council
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India)
Department of Science and Technology (India)
Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)
Ministry of Human Resource Development (India)
Agencia Estatal de Investigación
Vicepresidencia i Conselleria d'Innovació, Recerca i Turisme
Conselleria d'Educació i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears
Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana
Generalitat de Catalunya
National Science Centre (Poland)
Foundation for Polish Science
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Russian Foundation for Basic Research
Russian Science Foundation
European Commission
European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)
Royal Society
Scottish Funding Council
Scottish Universities Physics Alliance
Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA)
Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO)
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS)
Actions de Recherche Concertées
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO)
Paris Île-de-France Region
National Research, Development and Innovation Fund (NKFIA)
National Research Foundation of Korea
Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Canada Foundation for Innovation
Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (MCTIC)
International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR)
Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Leverhulme Trust
Research Corporation
Department of Energy (DOE)
Kavli Foundation
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
26000005
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06358
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06361
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06364
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
17H06133
Institute for Cosmic Ray Research
University of Tokyo
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI)
Academia Sinica
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
AS-CDA-105-M06
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)

Dates

Created
2021-03-23
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2022-10-28
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
LIGO , Physics Department , Physics Department , Physics Department
Other Numbering System Name
LIGO Document
Other Numbering System Identifier
DCC-PP2000500