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1. Stochastic waveform estimation at the fundamental quantum limit

Author

Gardner, James W., Gefen, Tuvia, Haine, Simon A., Hope, Joseph J., Preskill, John, Chen, Yanbei, and McCuller, Lee

Subjects
Quantum Physics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

Although measuring the deterministic waveform of a weak classical force is a well-studied problem, estimating a random waveform, such as the spectral density of a stochastic signal field, is much less well-understood despite it being a widespread task at the frontier of experimental physics. State-of-the-art precision sensors of random forces must account for the underlying quantum nature of the measurement, but the optimal quantum protocol for interrogating such linear sensors is not known. We derive the fundamental precision limit, the extended channel quantum Cram\'er-Rao bound, and the optimal protocol that attains it. In the experimentally relevant regime where losses dominate, we prove that non-Gaussian state preparation and measurements are required for optimality. We discuss how this non-Gaussian protocol could improve searches for signatures of quantum gravity, stochastic gravitational waves, and axionic dark matter., Comment: 32 pages (main text: 17 pages, appendices: 15 pages), 8 figures (main text: 6 figures, appendices: 2 figures). Presently in LIGO internal review as Document No. P2400069. To be submitted to PRX on April 29th, 2024

Published
2024

2. Squeezing the quantum noise of a gravitational-wave detector below the standard quantum limit

Author

Jia, Wenxuan, Xu, Victoria, Kuns, Kevin, Nakano, Masayuki, Barsotti, Lisa, Evans, Matthew, Mavalvala, Nergis, Abbott, Rich, Abouelfettouh, Ibrahim, Adhikari, Rana, Ananyeva, Alena, Appert, Stephen, Arai, Koji, Aritomi, Naoki, Aston, Stuart, Ball, Matthew, Ballmer, Stefan, Barker, David, Berger, Beverly, Betzwieser, Joseph, Bhattacharjee, Dripta, Billingsley, Garilynn, Bode, Nina, Bonilla, Edgard, Bossilkov, Vladimir, Branch, Adam, Brooks, Aidan, Brown, Daniel, Bryant, John, Cahillane, Craig, Cao, Huy-tuong, Capote, Elenna, Chen, Yanbei, Clara, Filiberto, Collins, Josh, Compton, Camilla, Cottingham, Robert, Coyne, Dennis, Crouch, Ryan, Csizmazia, Janos, Cullen, Torrey, Dartez, Louis, Demos, Nicholas, Dohmen, Ezekiel, Driggers, Jenne, Dwyer, Sheila, Effler, Anamaria, Ejlli, Aldo, Etzel, Todd, Feicht, Jon, Frey, Raymond, Frischhertz, William, Fritschel, Peter, Frolov, Valery, Fulda, Paul, Fyffe, Michael, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gateley, Bubba, Giaime, Joe, Giardina, Dwayne, Glanzer, Jane, Goetz, Evan, Jones, Aaron, Gras, Slawomir, Gray, Corey, Griffith, Don, Grote, Hartmut, Guidry, Tyler, Hall, Evan, Hanks, Jonathan, Hanson, Joe, Heintze, Matthew, Helmling-cornell, Adrian, Huang, Hsiang-yu, Inoue, Yuki, James, Alasdair, Jennings, Austin, Karat, Srinath, Kasprzack, Marie, Kawabe, Keita, Kijbunchoo, Nutsinee, Kissel, Jeffrey, Kontos, Antonios, Kumar, Rahul, Landry, Michael, Lantz, Brian, Laxen, Michael, Lee, Kyung-ha, Lesovsky, Madeline, Llamas, Francisco, Lormand, Marc, Loughlin, Hudsonalexander, Macas, Ronaldas, Macinnis, Myron, Makarem, Camille, Mannix, Benjaminrobert, Mansell, Georgia, Martin, Rodica, Maxwell, Nyath, Mccarrol, Garrett, Mccarthy, Richard, Mcclelland, David, Mccormick, Scott, Mcculler, Lee, Mcrae, Terry, Mera, Fernando, Merilh, Edmond, Meylahn, Fabian, Mittleman, Richard, Moraru, Dan, Moreno, Gerardo, Mould, Matthew, Mullavey, Adam, Nelson, Timothy, Neunzert, Ansel, Oberling, Jason, Ohanlon, Timothy, Osthelder, Charles, Ottaway, David, Overmier, Harry, Parker, William, Pele, Arnaud, Pham, Huyen, Pirello, Marc, Quetschke, Volker, Ramirez, Karla, Reyes, Jonathan, Richardson, Jonathan, Robinson, Mitchell, Rollins, Jameson, Romie, Janeen, Ross, Michael, Sadecki, Travis, Sanchez, Anthony, Sanchez, Eduardo, Sanchez, Luis, Savage, Richard, Schaetzl, Dean, Schiworski, Mitchell, Schnabel, Roman, Schofield, Robert, Schwartz, Eyal, Sellers, Danny, Shaffer, Thomas, Short, Ryan, Sigg, Daniel, Slagmolen, Bram, Soni, Siddharth, Sun, Ling, Tanner, David, Thomas, Michael, Thomas, Patrick, Thorne, Keith, Torrie, Calum, Traylor, Gary, Vajente, Gabriele, Vanosky, Jordan, Vecchio, Alberto, Veitch, Peter, Vibhute, Ajay, Vonreis, Erik, Warner, Jim, Weaver, Betsy, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Chris, Willke, Benno, Wipf, Christopher, Yamamoto, Hiro, Yu, Haocun, Zhang, Liyuan, and Zucker, Michael

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Quantum Physics
Abstract

Precision measurements of space and time, like those made by the detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), are often confronted with fundamental limitations imposed by quantum mechanics. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that the position and momentum of an object cannot both be precisely measured, giving rise to an apparent limitation called the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL). Reducing quantum noise below the SQL in gravitational-wave detectors, where photons are used to continuously measure the positions of freely falling mirrors, has been an active area of research for decades. Here we show how the LIGO A+ upgrade reduced the detectors' quantum noise below the SQL by up to 3 dB while achieving a broadband sensitivity improvement, more than two decades after this possibility was first presented.

Published
2024
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3. Photon Counting Interferometry to Detect Geontropic Space-Time Fluctuations with GQuEST

Author

Vermeulen, Sander M., Cullen, Torrey, Grass, Daniel, MacMillan, Ian A. O., Ramirez, Alexander J., Wack, Jeffrey, Korzh, Boris, Lee, Vincent S. H., Zurek, Kathryn M., Stoughton, Chris, and McCuller, Lee

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Quantum Physics
Abstract

The GQuEST (Gravity from the Quantum Entanglement of Space-Time) experiment uses tabletop-scale Michelson laser interferometers to probe for fluctuations in space-time. We present a practicable interferometer design featuring a novel photon counting readout method that provides unprecedented sensitivity, as it is not subject to the interferometric standard quantum limit. We evaluate the potential of this design to measure space-time fluctuations motivated by recent `geontropic' quantum gravity models. The accelerated accrual of Fisher information offered by the photon counting readout enables GQuEST to detect the predicted quantum gravity phenomena within measurement times at least 100 times shorter than equivalent conventional interferometers. The GQuEST design thus enables a fast and sensitive search for signatures of quantum gravity in a laboratory-scale experiment.

Published
2024

4. Quantum Sensors for High Energy Physics

Author

Chou, Aaron, Irwin, Kent, Maruyama, Reina H., Baker, Oliver K., Bartram, Chelsea, Berggren, Karl K., Cancelo, Gustavo, Carney, Daniel, Chang, Clarence L., Cho, Hsiao-Mei, Garcia-Sciveres, Maurice, Graham, Peter W., Habib, Salman, Harnik, Roni, Harris, J. G. E., Hertel, Scott A., Hume, David B., Khatiwada, Rakshya, Kovachy, Timothy L., Kurinsky, Noah, Lamoreaux, Steve K., Lehnert, Konrad W., Leibrandt, David R., Li, Dale, Loer, Ben, Martínez-Rincón, Julián, McCuller, Lee, Moore, David C., Mueller, Holger, Pena, Cristian, Pooser, Raphael C., Pyle, Matt, Rajendran, Surjeet, Safronova, Marianna S., Schuster, David I., Shaw, Matthew D., Spiropulu, Maria, Stankus, Paul, Sushkov, Alexander O., Winslow, Lindley, Xie, Si, and Zurek, Kathryn M.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, Quantum Physics
Abstract

Strong motivation for investing in quantum sensing arises from the need to investigate phenomena that are very weakly coupled to the matter and fields well described by the Standard Model. These can be related to the problems of dark matter, dark sectors not necessarily related to dark matter (for example sterile neutrinos), dark energy and gravity, fundamental constants, and problems with the Standard Model itself including the Strong CP problem in QCD. Resulting experimental needs typically involve the measurement of very low energy impulses or low power periodic signals that are normally buried under large backgrounds. This report documents the findings of the 2023 Quantum Sensors for High Energy Physics workshop which identified enabling quantum information science technologies that could be utilized in future particle physics experiments, targeting high energy physics science goals., Comment: 63 pages, 8 figures, Quantum Sensors for HEP workshop report, April 26-28, 2023

Published
2023

5. Cosmic Explorer: A Submission to the NSF MPSAC ngGW Subcommittee

Author

Evans, Matthew, Corsi, Alessandra, Afle, Chaitanya, Ananyeva, Alena, Arun, K. G., Ballmer, Stefan, Bandopadhyay, Ananya, Barsotti, Lisa, Baryakhtar, Masha, Berger, Edo, Berti, Emanuele, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Borhanian, Ssohrab, Broekgaarden, Floor, Brown, Duncan A., Cahillane, Craig, Campbell, Lorna, Chen, Hsin-Yu, Daniel, Kathryne J., Dhani, Arnab, Driggers, Jennifer C., Effler, Anamaria, Eisenstein, Robert, Fairhurst, Stephen, Feicht, Jon, Fritschel, Peter, Fulda, Paul, Gupta, Ish, Hall, Evan D., Hammond, Giles, Hannuksela, Otto A., Hansen, Hannah, Haster, Carl-Johan, Kacanja, Keisi, Kamai, Brittany, Kashyap, Rahul, Key, Joey Shapiro, Khadkikar, Sanika, Kontos, Antonios, Kuns, Kevin, Landry, Michael, Landry, Philippe, Lantz, Brian, Li, Tjonnie G. F., Lovelace, Geoffrey, Mandic, Vuk, Mansell, Georgia L., Martynov, Denys, McCuller, Lee, Miller, Andrew L., Nitz, Alexander Harvey, Owen, Benjamin J., Palomba, Cristiano, Read, Jocelyn, Phurailatpam, Hemantakumar, Reddy, Sanjay, Richardson, Jonathan, Rollins, Jameson, Romano, Joseph D., Sathyaprakash, Bangalore S., Schofield, Robert, Shoemaker, David H., Sigg, Daniel, Singh, Divya, Slagmolen, Bram, Sledge, Piper, Smith, Joshua, Soares-Santos, Marcelle, Strunk, Amber, Sun, Ling, Tanner, David, van Son, Lieke A. C., Vitale, Salvatore, Willke, Benno, Yamamoto, Hiro, and Zucker, Michael

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

Gravitational-wave astronomy has revolutionized humanity's view of the universe, a revolution driven by observations that no other field can make. This white paper describes an observatory that builds on decades of investment by the National Science Foundation and that will drive discovery for decades to come: Cosmic Explorer. Major discoveries in astronomy are driven by three related improvements: better sensitivity, higher precision, and opening new observational windows. Cosmic Explorer promises all three and will deliver an order-of-magnitude greater sensitivity than LIGO. Cosmic Explorer will push the gravitational-wave frontier to almost the edge of the observable universe using technologies that have been proven by LIGO during its development. With the unprecedented sensitivity that only a new facility can deliver, Cosmic Explorer will make discoveries that cannot yet be anticipated, especially since gravitational waves are both synergistic with electromagnetic observations and can reach into regions of the universe that electromagnetic observations cannot explore. With Cosmic Explorer, scientists can use the universe as a laboratory to test the laws of physics and study the nature of matter. Cosmic Explorer allows the United States to continue its leading role in gravitational-wave science and the international network of next-generation observatories. With its extraordinary discovery potential, Cosmic Explorer will deliver revolutionary observations across astronomy, physics, and cosmology including: Black Holes and Neutron Stars Throughout Cosmic Time, Multi-Messenger Astrophysics and Dynamics of Dense Matter, New Probes of Extreme Astrophysics, Fundamental Physics and Precision Cosmology, Dark Matter and the Early Universe.

Published
2023

6. Unification of thermal and quantum noise in gravitational-wave detectors

Author

Whittle, Chris, McCuller, Lee, Sudhir, Vivishek, and Evans, Matthew

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Quantum Physics
Abstract

Contemporary gravitational-wave detectors are fundamentally limited by thermal noise -- due to dissipation in the mechanical elements of the test mass -- and quantum noise -- from the vacuum fluctuations of the optical field used to probe the test mass position. Two other fundamental noises can in principle also limit sensitivity: test-mass quantization noise due to the zero-point fluctuation of its mechanical modes, and thermal excitation of the optical field. We use the quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem to unify all four noises. This unified picture shows precisely when test-mass quantization noise and optical thermal noise can be ignored., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Published
2022
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7. Single-Photon Signal Sideband Detection for High-Power Michelson Interferometers

Author

McCuller, Lee

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Quantum Physics
Abstract

The Michelson interferometer is a cornerstone of experimental physics. Its applications range from providing first impressions of wave interference in educational settings to probing spacetime at minuscule precision scales. Interferometer precision provides a unique view of the fundamental medium of matter and energy, enabling tests for new physics as well as searches for the gravitational wave signatures of distant astrophysical events. Optical interferometers are typically operated by continuously measuring the power at their output port. Signal perturbations then create sideband fields, forming a beat-note with the fringe light that modulates that power. When operated at a nearly-dark destructive interference fringe, this readout is a form of homodyne detection, with an imprecision set by a ``standard quantum limit'' attributed to shot noise from quantum vacuum fluctuations. The sideband signal fields carry energy which can, alternatively, be directly observed as photons distinct from the source laser. Without signal energy, vacuum does not form sidebands and cannot spuriously create photon counts or shot noise. Thus, counting can offer improved statistics when searching for weak signals when classical backgrounds are below the standard quantum limit. Here, photon counting statistics are described for optical interferometry, relating the two forms of measurement and showing cases where counting greatly outperforms homodyne readout, even with squeezed state quantum enhancement. The most immediate application for photon counting is improving searches of stochastic signals, such as from quantum gravity or from new particle fields. The advantages of counting may extend to wider applications, such as gravitational wave detectors, and the concept of Fisher-information representative spectral density is introduced to motivate further study., Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures

Published
2022

8. Probing squeezing for gravitational-wave detectors with an audio-band field

Author

Ganapathy, Dhruva, Xu, Victoria, Jia, Wenxuan, Whittle, Chris, Tse, Maggie, Barsotti, Lisa, Evans, Matthew, and McCuller, Lee

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

Squeezed vacuum states are now employed in gravitational-wave interferometric detectors, enhancing their sensitivity and thus enabling richer astrophysical observations. In future observing runs, the detectors will incorporate a filter cavity to suppress quantum radiation pressure noise using frequency-dependent squeezing. Interferometers employing internal and external cavities decohere and degrade squeezing in complex new ways, which must be studied to achieve increasingly ambitious noise goals. This paper introduces an audio diagnostic field (ADF) to quickly and accurately characterize the frequency-dependent response and the transient perturbations of resonant optical systems to squeezed states. This analysis enables audio field injections to become a powerful tool to witness and optimize interactions such as inter-cavity mode matching within gravitational-wave instruments. To demonstrate, we present experimental results from using the audio field to characterize a 16 m prototype filter cavity.

Published
2022
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9. A Horizon Study for Cosmic Explorer: Science, Observatories, and Community

Author

Evans, Matthew, Adhikari, Rana X, Afle, Chaitanya, Ballmer, Stefan W., Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Borhanian, Ssohrab, Brown, Duncan A., Chen, Yanbei, Eisenstein, Robert, Gruson, Alexandra, Gupta, Anuradha, Hall, Evan D., Huxford, Rachael, Kamai, Brittany, Kashyap, Rahul, Kissel, Jeff S., Kuns, Kevin, Landry, Philippe, Lenon, Amber, Lovelace, Geoffrey, McCuller, Lee, Ng, Ken K. Y., Nitz, Alexander H., Read, Jocelyn, Sathyaprakash, B. S., Shoemaker, David H., Slagmolen, Bram J. J., Smith, Joshua R., Srivastava, Varun, Sun, Ling, Vitale, Salvatore, and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

This Horizon Study describes a next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave observatory: Cosmic Explorer. With ten times the sensitivity of Advanced LIGO, Cosmic Explorer will push gravitational-wave astronomy towards the edge of the observable universe ($z \sim 100$). The goals of this Horizon Study are to describe and evaluate design concepts for Cosmic Explorer; to plan for the United States' leadership in gravitational-wave astronomy; and to envisage the role of Cosmic Explorer in the international effort to build a "Third-Generation" (3G) observatory network that will make discoveries transformative across astronomy, physics, and cosmology., Comment: 173 pages

Published
2021

10. Point absorbers in Advanced LIGO

Author

Brooks, Aidan F., Vajente, Gabriele, Yamamoto, Hiro, Abbott, Rich, Adams, Carl, Adhikari, Rana X., Ananyeva, Alena, Appert, Stephen, Arai, Koji, Areeda, Joseph S., Asali, Yasmeen, Aston, Stuart M., Austin, Corey, Baer, Anne M., Ball, Matthew, Ballmer, Stefan W., Banagiri, Sharan, Barker, David, Barsotti, Lisa, Bartlett, Jeffrey, Berger, Beverly K., Betzwieser, Joseph, Bhattacharjee, Dripta, Billingsley, Garilynn, Biscans, Sebastien, Blair, Carl D., Blair, Ryan M., Bode, Nina, Booker, Phillip, Bork, Rolf, Bramley, Alyssa, Brown, Daniel D., Buikema, Aaron, Cahillane, Craig, Cannon, Kipp C., Cao, Huy Tuong, Chen, Xu, Ciobanu, Alexei A., Clara, Filiberto, Compton, Camilla, Cooper, Sam J., Corley, Kenneth R., Countryman, Stefan T., Covas, Pep B., Coyne, Dennis C., Datrier, Laurence E., Davis, Derek, Difronzo, Chiara D., Dooley, Katherine L., Driggers, Jenne C., Dupej, Peter, Dwyer, Sheila E., Effler, Anamaria, Etzel, Todd, Evans, Matthew, Evans, Tom M., Feicht, Jon, Fernandez-Galiana, Alvaro, Fritschel, Peter, Frolov, Valery V., Fulda, Paul, Fyffe, Michael, Giaime, Joe A., Giardina, Dwayne D., Godwin, Patrick, Goetz, Evan, Gras, Slawomir, Gray, Corey, Gray, Rachel, Green, Anna C., Gupta, Anchal, Gustafson, Eric K., Gustafson, Dick, Hall, Evan, Hanks, Jonathan, Hanson, Joe, Hardwick, Terra, Hasskew, Raine K., Heintze, Matthew C., Helmling-Cornell, Adrian F., Holland, Nathan A., Jones, Jeff D., Kandhasamy, Shivaraj, Karki, Sudarshan, Kasprzack, Marie, Kawabe, Keita, Kijbunchoo, Nutsinee, King, Peter J., Kissel, Jeffrey S., Kumar, Rahul, Landry, Michael, Lane, Benjamin B., Lantz, Brian, Laxen, Michael, Lecoeuche, Yannick K., Leviton, Jessica, Jian, Liu, Lormand, Marc, Lundgren, Andrew P., Macas, Ronaldas, Macinnis, Myron, Macleod, Duncan M., Mansell, Georgia L., Marka, Szabolcs, Marka, Zsuzsanna, Martynov, Denis V., Mason, Ken, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCarthy, Richard, McClelland, David E., McCormick, Scott, McCuller, Lee, McIver, Jessica, McRae, Terry, Mendell, Gregory, Merfeld, Kara, Merilh, Edmond L., Meylahn, Fabian, Mistry, Timesh, Mittleman, Richard, Moreno, Gerardo, Mow-Lowry, Conor M., Mozzon, Simone, Mullavey, Adam, Nelson, Timothy J., Nguyen, Philippe, Nuttall, Laura K., Oberling, Jason, Oram, Richard J., Osthelder, Charles, Ottaway, David J., Overmier, Harry, Palamos, Jordan R., Parker, William, Payne, Ethan, Pele, Arnaud, Penhorwood, Reilly, Perez, Carlos J., Pirello, Marc, Radkins, Hugh, Ramirez, Karla E., Richardson, Jonathan W., Riles, Keith, Robertson, Norna A., Rollins, Jameson G., Romel, Chandra L., Romie, Janeen H., Ross, Michael P., Ryan, Kyle, Sadecki, Travis, Sanchez, Eduardo J., Sanchez, Luis E., Tiruppatturrajamanikkam, Saravanan R., Savage, Richard L., Schaetzl, Dean, Schnabel, Roman, Schofield, Robert M., Schwartz, Eyal, Sellers, Danny, Shaffer, Thomas, Sigg, Daniel, Slagmolen, Bram J., Smith, Joshua R., Soni, Siddharth, Sorazu, Borja, Spencer, Andrew P., Strain, Ken A., Sun, Ling, Szczepanczyk, Marek J., Thomas, Michael, Thomas, Patrick, Thorne, Keith A., Toland, Karl, Torrie, Calum I., Traylor, Gary, Tse, Maggie, Urban, Alexander L., Valdes, Guillermo, Vander-Hyde, Daniel C., Veitch, Peter J., Venkateswara, Krishna, Venugopalan, Gautam, Viets, Aaron D., Vo, Thomas, Vorvick, Cheryl, Wade, Madeline, Ward, Robert L., Warner, Jim, Weaver, Betsy, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Chris, Willke, Benno, Wipf, Christopher C., Xiao, Liting, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zhang, Liyuan, Zucker, Michael E., and Zweizig, John

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

Small, highly absorbing points are randomly present on the surfaces of the main interferometer optics in Advanced LIGO. The resulting nano-meter scale thermo-elastic deformations and substrate lenses from these micron-scale absorbers significantly reduces the sensitivity of the interferometer directly though a reduction in the power-recycling gain and indirect interactions with the feedback control system. We review the expected surface deformation from point absorbers and provide a pedagogical description of the impact on power build-up in second generation gravitational wave detectors (dual-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers). This analysis predicts that the power-dependent reduction in interferometer performance will significantly degrade maximum stored power by up to 50% and hence, limit GW sensitivity, but suggests system wide corrections that can be implemented in current and future GW detectors. This is particularly pressing given that future GW detectors call for an order of magnitude more stored power than currently used in Advanced LIGO in Observing Run 3. We briefly review strategies to mitigate the effects of point absorbers in current and future GW wave detectors to maximize the success of these enterprises., Comment: 49 pages, 16 figures. -V2: typographical errors in equations B9 and B10 were corrected (stray exponent of "h" was removed). Caption of Figure 9 was corrected to indicate that 40mW was used for absorption in the model, not 10mW as incorrectly indicated in V1

Published
2021
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11. Interferometric Constraints on Spacelike Coherent Rotational Fluctuations

Author

Richardson, Jonathan W., Kwon, Ohkyung, Gustafson, H. Richard, Hogan, Craig, Kamai, Brittany L., McCuller, Lee P., Meyer, Stephan S., Stoughton, Chris, Tomlin, Raymond E., and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Precision measurements are reported of the cross-spectrum of rotationally-induced differential position displacements in a pair of colocated 39 m long, high power Michelson interferometers. One arm of each interferometer is bent $90^{\circ}$ near its midpoint to obtain sensitivity to rotations about an axis normal to the plane of the instrument. The instrument achieves quantum-limited sensing of spatially-correlated signals in a broad frequency band extending beyond the 3.9 MHz inverse light travel time of the apparatus. For stationary signals with bandwidth $\Delta f > 10\;\mathrm{kHz}$, the sensitivity to rotation-induced strain $h$ of classical or exotic origin surpasses $\mathrm{CSD}_{\delta h} < t_P / 2$, where $t_P = 5.39 \times 10^{-44}\;\mathrm{s}$ is the Planck time. This measurement is used to constrain a semiclassical model of nonlocally coherent rotational degrees of freedom of spacetime, which have been conjectured to emerge in holographic quantum geometry but are not present in a classical metric., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. PRL accepted manuscript

Published
2020
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12. Tuning Advanced LIGO to kilohertz signals from neutron-star collisions

Author

Ganapathy, Dhruva, McCuller, Lee, Rollins, Jameson Graef, Hall, Evan D., Barsotti, Lisa, and Evans, Matthew

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

Gravitational waves produced at kilohertz frequencies in the aftermath of a neutron star collision can shed light on the behavior of matter at extreme temperatures and densities that are inaccessible to laboratory experiments. Gravitational-wave interferometers are limited by quantum noise at these frequencies but can be tuned via their optical configuration to maximize the probability of post-merger signal detection. We compare two such tuning strategies to turn Advanced LIGO into a post-merger-focused instrument: first, a wideband tuning that enhances the instrument's signal-to-noise ratio 40--80\% broadly above \SI{1}{\kHz} relative to the baseline, with a modest sensitivity penalty at lower frequencies; second, a "detuned" configuration that provides even more enhancement than the wideband tuning, but over only a narrow frequency band and at the expense of substantially worse quantum noise performance elsewhere. With an optimistic accounting for instrument loss and uncertainty in post-merger parameters, the detuned instrument has a ${\lesssim}40\%$ sensitivity improvement compared to the wideband instrument.

Published
2020
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13. Demonstration of an amplitude filter cavity at gravitational-wave frequencies

Author

Komori, Kentaro, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Whittle, Chris, McCuller, Lee, Barsotti, Lisa, Mavalvala, Nergis, and Evans, Matthew

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Physics - Optics
Abstract

Quantum vacuum fluctuations fundamentally limit the precision of optical measurements, such as those in gravitational-wave detectors. Injection of conventional squeezed vacuum can be used to reduce quantum noise in the readout quadrature, but this reduction is at the cost of increasing noise in the orthogonal quadrature. For detectors near the limits imposed by quantum radiation pressure noise (QRPN), both quadratures impact the measurement, and the benefits of conventional squeezing are limited. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a critically-coupled 16m optical cavity to diminish anti-squeezing at frequencies below 90Hz where it exacerbates QRPN, while preserving beneficial squeezing at higher frequencies. This is called an amplitude filter cavity, and it is useful for avoiding degradation of detector sensitivity at low frequencies. The attenuation from the cavity also provides technical advantages such as mitigating backscatter., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Published
2020
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14. Optimal detuning for quantum filter cavities

Author

Whittle, Chris, Komori, Kentaro, Ganapathy, Dhruva, McCuller, Lee, Barsotti, Lisa, Mavalvala, Nergis, and Evans, Matthew

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Physics - Optics
Abstract

Vacuum quantum fluctuations impose a fundamental limit on the sensitivity of gravitational-wave interferometers, which rank among the most sensitive precision measurement devices ever built. The injection of conventional squeezed vacuum reduces quantum noise in one quadrature at the expense of increasing noise in the other. While this approach improved the sensitivity of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo interferometers during their third observing run (O3), future improvements in arm power and squeezing levels will bring radiation pressure noise to the forefront. Installation of a filter cavity for frequency-dependent squeezing provides broadband reduction of quantum noise through the mitigation of this radiation pressure noise, and it is the baseline approach planned for all of the future gravitational-wave detectors currently conceived. The design and operation of a filter cavity requires careful consideration of interferometer optomechanics as well as squeezing degradation processes. In this paper, we perform an in-depth analysis to determine the optimal operating point of a filter cavity. We use our model alongside numerical tools to study the implications for filter cavities to be installed in the upcoming "A+" upgrade of the Advanced LIGO detectors., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

Published
2020
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15. The US Program in Ground-Based Gravitational Wave Science: Contribution from the LIGO Laboratory

Author

Reitze, David, Abbott, Rich, Adams, Carl, Adhikari, Rana, Aggarwal, Nancy, Anand, Shreya, Ananyeva, Alena, Anderson, Stuart, Appert, Stephen, Arai, Koji, Araya, Melody, Aston, Stuart, Barayoga, Juan, Barish, Barry, Barker, David, Barsotti, Lisa, Bartlett, Jeffrey, Betzwieser, Joseph, Billingsley, GariLynn, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Blackburn, Kent, Blair, Carl, Blair, Ryan, Bockelman, Brian, Bork, Rolf, Bramley, Alyssa, Brooks, Aidan, Brunett, Sharon, Buikema, Aaron, Cahillane, Craig, Callister, Thomas, Carruthers, Tom, Clara, Filiberto, Corban, Paul, Coughlin, Michael, Couvares, Peter, Cowart, Matthew, Coyne, Dennis, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Fred, Driggers, Jenne, Dwyer, Sheila, Effler, Anamaria, Eisenstein, Robert, Etzel, Todd, Evans, Matthew, Evans, Tom, Feicht, Jon, Fernandez-Galiana, Alvaro, Fritschel, Peter, Frolov, Valery, Fyffe, Michael, Gateley, Bubba, Giaime, Joe, Giardina, Dwayne, Goetz, Evan, Gossan, Sarah, Gras, Slawomir, Grassia, Philippe, Gray, Corey, Gupta, Anchal, Gustafson, Eric, Guthman, Les, Hall, Evan, Hanks, Jonathan, Hanson, Joe, Hasskew, Raine, Haster, Carl-Johan, Heintze, Matthew, Hernandez, Edgar, Holt, Kathy, Huang, Yiwen, Huynh-Dinh, Tien, Isi, Max, Jones, Jeff, Kamai, Brittany, Kanner, Jonah, Kasprzack, Marie, Katsavounidis, Erik, Katzman, William, Kawabe, Keita, King, Peter, Kissel, Jeffrey, Kondrashov, Veronica, Korth, William, Kozak, Dan, Kumar, Rahul, Landry, Michael, Lane, Benjamin, Lanza, Robert, Laxen, Michael, Lazzarini, Albert, Lecoeuche, Yannick, Libbrecht, Ken, Lo, Ka-Lok, London, Lionel, Lormand, Marc, MacInnis, Myron, Mansell, Georgia, Markowitz, Aaron, Maros, Ed, Marx, Jay, Mason, Ken, Massinger, Thomas, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCarthy, Richard, McCormick, Scott, McCuller, Lee, McIver, Jessica, Mendell, Gregory, Merilh, Edmond, Meshkov, Syd, Mittleman, Richard, Moraru, Dan, Moreno, Gerardo, Mullavey, Adam, Nelson, Timothy, Ng, Kwan-Yeung, Noh, Minkyun, O'Reilly, Brian, Oberling, Jason, Oram, Richard, Osthelder, Charles, Overmier, Harry, Parker, William, Pedraza, Mike, Pele, Arnaud, Perez, Carlos, Petterson, Danielle, Pirello, Marc, Raab, Fred, Radkins, Hugh, Mohapatra, Satyanarayan Ray Pitambar, Richardson, Jonathan, Robertson, Norna, Rollins, Jameson, Romel, Chandra, Romie, Janeen, Ryan, Kyle, Sadecki, Travis, Sanchez, Eduardo, Sanchez, Luis, Savage, Richard, Schaetzl, Dean, Sellers, Danny, Shaffer, Thomas, Shoemaker, David, Sigg, Daniel, Strunk, Amber, Sudhir, Vivishek, Sun, Ling, Tao, Duo, Taylor, Robert, Thomas, Michael, Thomas, Patrick, Thorne, Keith, Torrie, Calum, Traylor, Gary, Trudeau, Randy, Tse, Maggie, Vajente, Gabriele, Vass, Steve, Venugopalan, Gautam, Vitale, Salvatore, Vorvick, Cheryl, Wade, Andrew, Wallace, Larry, Warner, Jim, Weaver, Betsy, Weinstein, Alan, Weiss, Rainer, Whitcomb, Stan, Whittle, Chris, Willis, Joshua, Wipf, Christopher, Xiao, Sophia, Yamamoto, Hiro, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zhang, Liyuan, Zucker, Michael, and Zweizig, John

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

Recent gravitational-wave observations from the LIGO and Virgo observatories have brought a sense of great excitement to scientists and citizens the world over. Since September 2015,10 binary black hole coalescences and one binary neutron star coalescence have been observed. They have provided remarkable, revolutionary insight into the "gravitational Universe" and have greatly extended the field of multi-messenger astronomy. At present, Advanced LIGO can see binary black hole coalescences out to redshift 0.6 and binary neutron star coalescences to redshift 0.05. This probes only a very small fraction of the volume of the observable Universe. However, current technologies can be extended to construct "$3^\mathrm{rd}$ Generation" (3G) gravitational-wave observatories that would extend our reach to the very edge of the observable Universe. The event rates over such a large volume would be in the hundreds of thousands per year (i.e.tens per hour). Such 3G detectors would have a 10-fold improvement in strain sensitivity over the current generation of instruments, yielding signal-to-noise ratios of 1000 for events like those already seen. Several concepts are being studied for which engineering studies and reliable cost estimates will be developed in the next 5 years., Comment: For the 2020 Astro decadal

Published
2019

16. A compact actively damped vibration isolation platform for optical experiments in ultra-high vacuum

Author

Fernández-Galiana, Álvaro, McCuller, Lee, Kissel, Jeff, Barsotti, Lisa, Miller, John, Tse, Maggie, Evans, Matthew, Aston, Stuart M., Shaffer, Thomas J., Pele, Arnaud, Romie, Janeen H., Weaver, Betsy, Abbott, Richard, Fritschel, Peter, Mavalvala, Nergis, and Matichard, Fabrice

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Optics
Abstract

We present a tabletop six-axis vibration isolation system, compatible with Ultra-High Vacuum (UHV), which is actively damped and provides 25 dB of isolation at 10 Hz and 65 dB at 100 Hz. While this isolation platform has been primarily designed to support optics in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, it is suitable for a variety of applications. The system has been engineered to facilitate the construction and assembly process, while minimizing cost. The platform provides passive isolation for six degrees of freedom using a combination of vertical springs and horizontal pendula. It is instrumented with voice-coil actuators and optical shadow sensors to damp the resonances. All materials are compatible with stringent vacuum requirements. Thanks to its architecture, the system's footprint can be adapted to meet spatial requirements, while maximizing the dimensions of the optical table. Three units are currently operating for LIGO. We present the design of the system, controls principle, and experimental results.

Published
2019

17. Interferometric Constraints on Quantum Geometrical Shear Noise Correlations

Author

Chou, Aaron, Glass, Henry, Gustafson, H. Richard, Hogan, Craig J., Kamai, Brittany L., Kwon, Ohkyung, Lanza, Robert, McCuller, Lee, Meyer, Stephan S., Richardson, Jonathan W., Stoughton, Chris, Tomlin, Ray, and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

Final measurements and analysis are reported from the first-generation Holometer, the first instrument capable of measuring correlated variations in space-time position at strain noise power spectral densities smaller than a Planck time. The apparatus consists of two co-located, but independent and isolated, 40 m power-recycled Michelson interferometers, whose outputs are cross-correlated to 25 MHz. The data are sensitive to correlations of differential position across the apparatus over a broad band of frequencies up to and exceeding the inverse light crossing time, 7.6 MHz. By measuring with Planck precision the correlation of position variations at spacelike separations, the Holometer searches for faint, irreducible correlated position noise backgrounds predicted by some models of quantum space-time geometry. The first-generation optical layout is sensitive to quantum geometrical noise correlations with shear symmetry---those that can be interpreted as a fundamental noncommutativity of space-time position in orthogonal directions. General experimental constraints are placed on parameters of a set of models of spatial shear noise correlations, with a sensitivity that exceeds the Planck-scale holographic information bound on position states by a large factor. This result significantly extends the upper limits placed on models of directional noncommutativity by currently operating gravitational wave observatories., Comment: Matches the journal accepted version

Published
2017
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18. The Holometer: An Instrument to Probe Planckian Quantum Geometry

Author

Chou, Aaron, Glass, Henry, Gustafson, H. Richard, Hogan, Craig, Kamai, Brittany L., Kwon, Ohkyung, Lanza, Robert, McCuller, Lee, Meyer, Stephan S., Richardson, Jonathan, Stoughton, Chris, Tomlin, Ray, and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

This paper describes the Fermilab Holometer, an instrument for measuring correlations of position variations over a four-dimensional volume of space-time. The apparatus consists of two co-located, but independent and isolated, 40m power-recycled Michelson interferometers, whose outputs are cross-correlated to 25 MHz. The data are sensitive to correlations of differential position across the apparatus over a broad band of frequencies up to and exceeding the inverse light crossing time, 7.6 MHz. A noise model constrained by diagnostic and environmental data distinguishes among physical origins of measured correlations, and is used to verify shot-noise-limited performance. These features allow searches for exotic quantum correlations that depart from classical trajectories at spacelike separations, with a strain noise power spectral density sensitivity smaller than the Planck time. The Holometer in current and future configurations is projected to provide precision tests of a wide class of models of quantum geometry at the Planck scale, beyond those already constrained by currently operating gravitational wave observatories., Comment: Matches the version accepted in Classical and Quantum Gravity

Published
2016
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19. MHz Gravitational Wave Constraints with Decameter Michelson Interferometers

Author

Chou, Aaron S., Gustafson, Richard, Hogan, Craig, Kamai, Brittany, Kwon, Ohkyung, Lanza, Robert, Larson, Shane L., McCuller, Lee, Meyer, Stephan S., Richardson, Jonathan, Stoughton, Chris, Tomlin, Raymond, and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

A new detector, the Fermilab Holometer, consists of separate yet identical 39-meter Michelson interferometers. Strain sensitivity achieved is better than $10^{-21} /{\sqrt{\rm{Hz}}}$ between 1 to 13 MHz from a 130-hr dataset. This measurement exceeds the sensitivity and frequency range made from previous high frequency gravitational wave experiments by many orders of magnitude. Constraints are placed on a stochastic background at 382 Hz resolution. The 3$\sigma$ upper limit on $\Omega_{\rm{GW}}$, the gravitational wave energy density normalized to the closure density, ranges from $5.6 \times 10^{12}$ at 1 MHz to $8.4 \times 10^{15}$ at 13 MHz. Another result from the same dataset is a search for nearby primordial black hole binaries (PBHB). There are no detectable monochromatic PBHBs in the mass range $0.83$ - $3.5 \times 10^{21}$g between the earth and the moon. Projections for a chirp search with the same dataset increases the mass range to $0.59 - 2.5 \times 10^{25}$g and distances out to Jupiter. This result presents a new method for placing limits on a poorly constrained mass range of primordial black holes. Additionally, solar system searches for PBHBs place limits on their contribution to the total dark matter fraction.

Published
2016
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20. Unification of Thermal and Quantum Noises in Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Author

Whittle, Chris, McCuller, Lee, Sudhir, Vivishek, Evans, Matthew, Whittle, Chris, McCuller, Lee, Sudhir, Vivishek, and Evans, Matthew

Abstract

Contemporary gravitational-wave detectors are fundamentally limited by thermal noise-due to dissipation in the mechanical elements of the test mass-and quantum noise-from the vacuum fluctuations of the optical field used to probe the test-mass position. Two other fundamental noises can in principle also limit sensitivity: test-mass quantization noise due to the zero-point fluctuation of its mechanical modes and thermal excitation of the optical field. We use the quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem to unify all four noises. This unified picture shows precisely when test-mass quantization noise and optical thermal noise can be ignored.

Published
2024

21. First measurements of high frequency cross-spectra from a pair of large Michelson interferometers

Author

Chou, Aaron S., Gustafson, Richard, Hogan, Craig, Kamai, Brittany, Kwon, Ohkyung, Lanza, Robert, McCuller, Lee, Meyer, Stephan S., Richardson, Jonathan, Stoughton, Chris, Tomlin, Raymond, Waldman, Samuel, and Weiss, Rainer

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Measurements are reported of the cross-correlation of spectra of differential position signals from the Fermilab Holometer, a pair of co-located 39 m long, high power Michelson interferometers with flat, broadband frequency response in the MHz range. The instrument obtains sensitivity to high frequency correlated signals far exceeding any previous measurement in a broad frequency band extending beyond the 3.8 MHz inverse light crossing time of the apparatus. The dominant but uncorrelated shot noise is averaged down over $2\times 10^8$ independent spectral measurements with 381 Hz frequency resolution to obtain $2.1\times 10^{-20} \ \mathrm{m}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ sensitivity to stationary signals. For signal bandwidths $\Delta f > 11$ kHz, the sensitivity to strain $h$ or shear power spectral density of classical or exotic origin surpasses a milestone $PSD_{\delta h} < t_p$ where $t_p= 5.39\times 10^{-44}/\mathrm{Hz}$ is the Planck time., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Published
2015
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23. Unification of Thermal and Quantum Noises in Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Author

Whittle, Chris, McCuller, Lee, Sudhir, Vivishek, and Evans, Matthew

Abstract

Contemporary gravitational-wave detectors are fundamentally limited by thermal noise—due to dissipation in the mechanical elements of the test mass—and quantum noise—from the vacuum fluctuations of the optical field used to probe the test-mass position. Two other fundamental noises can in principle also limit sensitivity: test-mass quantization noise due to the zero-point fluctuation of its mechanical modes and thermal excitation of the optical field. We use the quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem to unify all four noises. This unified picture shows precisely when test-mass quantization noise and optical thermal noise can be ignored.

Published
2023

24. Gravitational-wave Constraints on the Equatorial Ellipticity of Millisecond Pulsars

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gopakumar, A., Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Nguyen, T., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Unikrishnan, C. S., Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gopakumar, A., Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Nguyen, T., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Unikrishnan, C. S., Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

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 perform targeted searches that assume a tight coupling between the gravitational-wave and electromagnetic signal phase evolution. We also present constraints on PSR J0711-6830, the Crab pulsar, and the Vela pulsar from a search that relaxes this assumption, allowing the gravitational-wave signal to vary from the electromagnetic expectation within a narrow band of frequencies and frequency derivatives.

Published
2022

25. All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars using Advanced LIGO O2 data

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019 American Physical Society. 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. Three different semicoherent methods are used to search in a gravitational-wave frequency band from 20 to 1922 Hz and a first frequency derivative from -1×10-8 to 2×10-9 Hz/s. None of these searches has found clear evidence for a CW signal, so upper limits on the gravitational-wave strain amplitude are calculated, which for this broad range in parameter space are the most sensitive ever achieved.

Published
2022

26. GW190425: Observation of a Compact Binary Coalescence with Total Mass ∼ 3.4 M ⊙

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.. On 2019 April 25, the LIGO Livingston detector observed a compact binary coalescence with signal-to-noise ratio 12.9. The Virgo detector was also taking data that did not contribute to detection due to a low signal-to-noise ratio, but were used for subsequent parameter estimation. The 90% credible intervals for the component masses range from to if we restrict the dimensionless component spin magnitudes to be smaller than 0.05). These mass parameters are consistent with the individual binary components being neutron stars. However, both the source-frame chirp mass and the total mass of this system are significantly larger than those of any other known binary neutron star (BNS) system. The possibility that one or both binary components of the system are black holes cannot be ruled out from gravitational-wave data. We discuss possible origins of the system based on its inconsistency with the known Galactic BNS population. Under the assumption that the signal was produced by a BNS coalescence, the local rate of neutron star mergers is updated to 250-2810.

Published
2022

27. Search for Multimessenger Sources of Gravitational Waves and High-energy Neutrinos with Advanced LIGO during Its First Observing Run, ANTARES, and IceCube

Author

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, ANTARES Collaboration, IceCube Collaboration, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Arguelles Delgado, Carlos A, Axani, Spencer Nicholas, Collin, G. H., Conrad, Janet Marie, Moulai, Marjon H., Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, ANTARES Collaboration, IceCube Collaboration, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Arguelles Delgado, Carlos A, Axani, Spencer Nicholas, Collin, G. H., Conrad, Janet Marie, Moulai, Marjon H., Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society.. Astrophysical sources of gravitational waves, such as binary neutron star and black hole mergers or core-collapse supernovae, can drive relativistic outflows, giving rise to non-thermal high-energy emission. High-energy neutrinos are signatures of such outflows. The detection of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos from common sources could help establish the connection between the dynamics of the progenitor and the properties of the outflow. We searched for associated emission of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical transients with minimal assumptions using data from Advanced LIGO from its first observing run O1, and data from the Antares and IceCube neutrino observatories from the same time period. We focused on candidate events whose astrophysical origins could not be determined from a single messenger. We found no significant coincident candidate, which we used to constrain the rate density of astrophysical sources dependent on their gravitational-wave and neutrino emission processes.

Published
2022

28. Search for Gravitational-wave Signals Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts during the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, IPN Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, IPN Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society.. 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 associated with the other gamma-ray bursts analyzed, and therefore we report lower bounds on the distance to each of these, assuming various source types and signal morphologies. Using our final modeled search results, short gamma-ray burst observations, and assuming binary neutron star progenitors, we place bounds on the rate of short gamma-ray bursts as a function of redshift for z ≤ 1. We estimate 0.07-1.80 joint detections with Fermi-GBM per year for the 2019-20 LIGO-Virgo observing run and 0.15-3.90 per year when current gravitational-wave detectors are operating at their design sensitivities.

Published
2022

29. Narrow-band search for gravitational waves from known pulsars using the second LIGO observing run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019 us. American Physical Society. American Physical Society. Isolated spinning neutron stars, asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis, are expected to be sources of continuous gravitational waves. The most sensitive searches for these sources are based on accurate matched filtering techniques that assume the continuous wave to be phase locked with the pulsar beamed emission. While matched filtering maximizes the search sensitivity, a significant signal-to-noise ratio loss will happen in the case of a mismatch between the assumed and the true signal phase evolution. Narrow-band algorithms allow for a small mismatch in the frequency and spin-down values of the pulsar while coherently integrating the entire dataset. In this paper, we describe a narrow-band search using LIGO O2 data for the continuous wave emission of 33 pulsars. No evidence of a continuous wave signal is found, and upper limits on the gravitational wave amplitude over the analyzed frequency and spin-down ranges are computed for each of the targets. In this search, we surpass the spin-down limit, namely, the maximum rotational energy loss due to gravitational waves emission for some of the pulsars already present in the LIGO O1 narrow-band search, such as J1400-6325, J1813-1246, J1833-1034, J1952+3252, and for new targets such as J0940-5428 and J1747-2809. For J1400-6325, J1833-1034, and J1747-2809, this is the first time the spin-down limit is surpassed.

Published
2022

30. Search for Gravitational Waves from a Long-lived Remnant of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Martynov, D. V., Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, John, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yam, William, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Martynov, D. V., Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, John, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yam, William, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. One unanswered question about the binary neutron star coalescence GW170817 is the nature of its post-merger remnant. A previous search for post-merger gravitational waves targeted high-frequency signals from a possible neutron star remnant with a maximum signal duration of 500 s. Here, we revisit the neutron star remnant scenario and focus on longer signal durations, up until the end of the second Advanced LIGO-Virgo observing run, which was 8.5 days after the coalescence of GW170817. The main physical scenario for this emission is the power-law spindown of a massive magnetar-like remnant. We use four independent search algorithms with varying degrees of restrictiveness on the signal waveform and different ways of dealing with noise artefacts. In agreement with theoretical estimates, we find no significant signal candidates. Through simulated signals, we quantify that with the current detector sensitivity, nowhere in the studied parameter space are we sensitive to a signal from more than 1 Mpc away, compared to the actual distance of 40 Mpc. However, this study serves as a prototype for post-merger analyses in future observing runs with expected higher sensitivity.

Published
2022

31. A guide to LIGO–Virgo detector noise and extraction of transient gravitational-wave signals

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration have cataloged eleven confidently detected gravitational-wave events during the first two observing runs of the advanced detector era. All eleven events were consistent with being from well-modeled mergers between compact stellar-mass objects: black holes or neutron stars. The data around the time of each of these events have been made publicly available through the gravitational-wave open science center. The entirety of the gravitational-wave strain data from the first and second observing runs have also now been made publicly available. There is considerable interest among the broad scientific community in understanding the data and methods used in the analyses. In this paper, we provide an overview of the detector noise properties and the data analysis techniques used to detect gravitational-wave signals and infer the source properties. We describe some of the checks that are performed to validate the analyses and results from the observations of gravitational-wave events. We also address concerns that have been raised about various properties of LIGO-Virgo detector noise and the correctness of our analyses as applied to the resulting data.

Published
2022

32. Optically targeted search for gravitational waves emitted by core-collapse supernovae during the first and second observing runs of advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, ASAS-SN Collaboration, DLT40 Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, ASAS-SN Collaboration, DLT40 Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020 American Physical Society. We present the results from a search for gravitational-wave transients associated with core-collapse supernovae observed within a source distance of approximately 20 Mpc during the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. No significant gravitational-wave candidate was detected. We report the detection efficiencies as a function of the distance for waveforms derived from multidimensional numerical simulations and phenomenological extreme emission models. The sources with neutrino-driven explosions are detectable at the distances approaching 5 kpc, and for magnetorotationally driven explosions the distances are up to 54 kpc. However, waveforms for extreme emission models are detectable up to 28 Mpc. For the first time, the gravitational-wave data enabled us to exclude part of the parameter spaces of two extreme emission models with confidence up to 83%, limited by coincident data coverage. Besides, using ad hoc harmonic signals windowed with Gaussian envelopes, we constrained the gravitational-wave energy emitted during core collapse at the levels of 4.27×10-4 M·c2 and 1.28×10-1 M·c2 for emissions at 235 and 1304 Hz, respectively. These constraints are 2 orders of magnitude more stringent than previously derived in the corresponding analysis using initial LIGO, initial Virgo, and GEO 600 data.

Published
2022

33. GW190412: Observation of a binary-black-hole coalescence with asymmetric masses

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, M., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, M., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. We report the observation of gravitational waves from a binary-black-hole coalescence during the first two weeks of LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run. The signal was recorded on April 12, 2019 at 05â¶30â¶44 UTC with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 19. The binary is different from observations during the first two observing runs most notably due to its asymmetric masses: A ∼30 M⊙ black hole merged with a ∼8 M⊙ black hole companion. The more massive black hole rotated with a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.22 and 0.60 (90% probability). Asymmetric systems are predicted to emit gravitational waves with stronger contributions from higher multipoles, and indeed we find strong evidence for gravitational radiation beyond the leading quadrupolar order in the observed signal. A suite of tests performed on GW190412 indicates consistency with Einstein's general theory of relativity. While the mass ratio of this system differs from all previous detections, we show that it is consistent with the population model of stellar binary black holes inferred from the first two observing runs.

Published
2022

34. Low-latency Gravitational-wave Alerts for Multimessenger Astronomy during the Second Advanced LIGO and Virgo Observing Run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew Hiram, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gopakumar, Achamveedu, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lane, B. B., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mohapatra, S. R. P., Ng, K. Y., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew Hiram, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gopakumar, Achamveedu, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lane, B. B., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mohapatra, S. R. P., Ng, K. Y., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society.. Advanced LIGO's second observing run (O2), conducted from 2016 November 30 to 2017 August 25, combined with Advanced Virgo's first observations in 2017 August, witnessed the birth of gravitational-wave multimessenger astronomy. The first ever gravitational-wave detection from the coalescence of two neutron stars, GW170817, and its gamma-ray counterpart, GRB 170817A, led to an electromagnetic follow-up of the event at an unprecedented scale. Several teams from across the world searched for EM/neutrino counterparts to GW170817, paving the way for the discovery of optical, X-ray, and radio counterparts. In this article, we describe the online identification of gravitational-wave transients and the distribution of gravitational-wave alerts by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations during O2. We also describe the gravitational-wave observables that were sent in the alerts to enable searches for their counterparts. Finally, we give an overview of the online candidate alerts shared with observing partners during O2. Alerts were issued for 14 candidates, 6 of which have been confirmed as gravitational-wave events associated with the merger of black holes or neutron stars. Of the 14 alerts, 8 were issued less than an hour after data acquisition.

Published
2022

35. Tuning Advanced LIGO to kilohertz signals from neutron-star collisions

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Ganapathy, Dhruva, McCuller, Lee, Rollins, Jameson Graef, Hall, Evan D, Barsotti, Lisa, Evans, Matthew, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Ganapathy, Dhruva, McCuller, Lee, Rollins, Jameson Graef, Hall, Evan D, Barsotti, Lisa, and Evans, Matthew

Abstract

© 2021 American Physical Society. Gravitational waves produced at kilohertz frequencies in the aftermath of a neutron star collision can shed light on the behavior of matter at extreme temperatures and densities that are inaccessible to laboratory experiments. Gravitational-wave interferometers are limited by quantum noise at these frequencies but can be tuned via their optical configuration to maximize the probability of postmerger signal detection. We compare two such tuning strategies to turn Advanced LIGO into a postmerger-focused instrument: first, a wideband tuning that enhances the instrument's signal-to-noise ratio 40-80% broadly above 1 kHz relative to the baseline, with a modest sensitivity penalty at lower frequencies; second, a "detuned"configuration that provides even more enhancement than the wideband tuning, but over only a narrow frequency band and at the expense of substantially worse quantum noise performance elsewhere. With an optimistic accounting for instrument loss and uncertainty in postmerger parameters, the detuned instrument has a 40% sensitivity improvement compared to the wideband instrument.

Published
2022

36. Squeezing in Gravitational Wave Detectors

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dwyer, Sheila E., Mansell, Georgia L., McCuller, Lee, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dwyer, Sheila E., Mansell, Georgia L., and McCuller, Lee

Abstract

Injecting optical squeezed states of light, a technique known as squeezing, is now a tool for gravitational wave detection. Its ability to reduce quantum noise is helping to reveal more gravitational wave transients, expanding the catalog of observations in the last observing run. This review introduces squeezing and its history in the context of gravitational-wave detectors. It overviews the benefits, limitations and methods of incorporating squeezing into advanced interferometers, emphasizing the most relevant details for astrophysics instrumentation.

Published
2022

37. Search for Subsolar Mass Ultracompact Binaries in Advanced LIGO’s Second Observing Run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Conrad, Janet Marie, Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Conrad, Janet Marie, Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019 American Physical Society. We present a search for subsolar mass ultracompact objects in data obtained during Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In contrast to a previous search of Advanced LIGO data from the first observing run, this search includes the effects of component spin on the gravitational waveform. We identify no viable gravitational-wave candidates consistent with subsolar mass ultracompact binaries with at least one component between 0.2 Ma-1.0 Ma. We use the null result to constrain the binary merger rate of (0.2 M, 0.2 M) binaries to be less than 3.7×105 Gpc-3 yr-1 and the binary merger rate of (1.0 M, 1.0 M) binaries to be less than 5.2×103 Gpc-3 yr-1. Subsolar mass ultracompact objects are not expected to form via known stellar evolution channels, though it has been suggested that primordial density fluctuations or particle dark matter with cooling mechanisms and/or nuclear interactions could form black holes with subsolar masses. Assuming a particular primordial black hole (PBH) formation model, we constrain a population of merging 0.2 M black holes to account for less than 16% of the dark matter density and a population of merging 1.0 M black holes to account for less than 2% of the dark matter density. We discuss how constraints on the merger rate and dark matter fraction may be extended to arbitrary black hole population models that predict subsolar mass binaries.

Published
2022

38. All-sky search in early O3 LIGO data for continuous gravitational-wave signals from unknown neutron stars in binary systems

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, K. Y., Nguyen, T., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, K. Y., Nguyen, T., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

Rapidly spinning neutron stars are promising sources of persistent, 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 sensitive frequency band of the LIGO detectors, 50 - 300 Hz. Binary orbital parameters are split into four regions, comprising orbital periods of 3 - 45 days and projected semimajor axes of 2 - 40 light-seconds. No detections are reported. We estimate the sensitivity of the search using simulated continuous wave signals, achieving the most sensitive results to date across the analyzed parameter space.

Published
2022

39. Quantum correlations between light and the kilogram-mass mirrors of LIGO

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Yu, Haocun, McCuller, Lee P, Tse, Maggie, Barsotti, Lisa, Mavalvala, Nergis, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Matichard, Fabrice, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Buikema, Aaron, Biscans, Sebastien, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Mittleman, Richard K, Weiss, Rainer, Yu, Hang, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Yu, Haocun, McCuller, Lee P, Tse, Maggie, Barsotti, Lisa, Mavalvala, Nergis, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Matichard, Fabrice, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Buikema, Aaron, Biscans, Sebastien, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Mittleman, Richard K, Weiss, Rainer, Yu, Hang, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. The measurement of minuscule forces and displacements with ever greater precision is inhibited by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which imposes a limit to the precision with which the position of an object can be measured continuously, known as the standard quantum limit1–4. When light is used as the probe, the standard quantum limit arises from the balance between the uncertainties of the photon radiation pressure applied to the object and of the photon number in the photoelectric detection. The only way to surpass the standard quantum limit is by introducing correlations between the position/momentum uncertainty of the object and the photon number/phase uncertainty of the light that it reflects5. Here we confirm experimentally the theoretical prediction5 that this type of quantum correlation is naturally produced in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). We characterize and compare noise spectra taken without squeezing and with squeezed vacuum states injected at varying quadrature angles. After subtracting classical noise, our measurements show that the quantum mechanical uncertainties in the phases of the 200-kilowatt laser beams and in the positions of the 40-kilogram mirrors of the Advanced LIGO detectors yield a joint quantum uncertainty that is a factor of 1.4 (3 decibels) below the standard quantum limit. We anticipate that the use of quantum correlations will improve not only the observation of gravitational waves, but also more broadly future quantum noise-limited measurements.

Published
2022

40. Searches for Continuous Gravitational Waves from 15 Supernova Remnants and Fomalhaut b with Advanced LIGO

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We describe directed searches for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from 16 well-localized candidate neutron stars, assuming none of the stars has a binary companion. The searches were directed toward 15 supernova remnants and Fomalhaut b, a directly imaged extrasolar planet candidate that has been suggested to be a nearby old neutron star. Each search covered a broad band of frequencies and first and second time derivatives. After coherently integrating spans of data from the first Advanced LIGO observing run of 3.5-53.7 days per search, applying data-based vetoes, and discounting known instrumental artifacts, we found no astrophysical signals. We set upper limits on intrinsic GW strain as strict as 1 ×10-25, fiducial neutron star ellipticity as strict as 2 ×10-9, and fiducial r-mode amplitude as strict as 3 ×10-8.

Published
2022

41. Tests of General Relativity with GW170817

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Martynov, Denis, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, J., Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yam, William, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Martynov, Denis, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, J., Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yam, William, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

The recent discovery by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo of a gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral has enabled tests of general relativity (GR) with this new type of source. This source, for the first time, permits tests of strong-field dynamics of compact binaries in the presence of matter. In this Letter, we place constraints on the dipole radiation and possible deviations from GR in the post-Newtonian coefficients that govern the inspiral regime. Bounds on modified dispersion of gravitational waves are obtained; in combination with information from the observed electromagnetic counterpart we can also constrain effects due to large extra dimensions. Finally, the polarization content of the gravitational wave signal is studied. The results of all tests performed here show good agreement with GR.

Published
2022

42. Search for Transient Gravitational-wave Signals Associated with Magnetar Bursts during Advanced LIGO’s Second Observing Run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. We present the results of a search for short- and intermediate-duration gravitational-wave signals from four magnetar bursts in Advanced LIGO's second observing run. We find no evidence of a signal and set upper bounds on the root sum squared of the total dimensionless strain (h rss ) from incoming intermediate-duration gravitational waves ranging from 1.1 ×10 -22 at 150 Hz to 4.4 ×10 -22 at 1550 Hz at 50% detection efficiency. From the known distance to the magnetar SGR 1806-20 (8.7 kpc), we can place upper bounds on the isotropic gravitational-wave energy of 3.4 ×10 44 erg at 150 Hz assuming optimal orientation. This represents an improvement of about a factor of 10 in strain sensitivity from the previous search for such signals, conducted during initial LIGO's sixth science run. The short-duration search yielded upper limits of 2.1 ×10 44 erg for short white noise bursts, and 2.3 ×10 47 erg for 100 ms long ringdowns at 1500 Hz, both at 50% detection efficiency.

Published
2022

43. Sensitivity and performance of the Advanced LIGO detectors in the third observing run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Buikema, Aaron, Mansell, Georgia, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Tse, Maggie, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Buikema, Aaron, Mansell, Georgia, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Tse, Maggie, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. On April 1st, 2019, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO), joined by the Advanced Virgo detector, began the third observing run, a year-long dedicated search for gravitational radiation. The LIGO detectors have achieved a higher duty cycle and greater sensitivity to gravitational waves than ever before, with LIGO Hanford achieving angle-averaged sensitivity to binary neutron star coalescences to a distance of 111 Mpc, and LIGO Livingston to 134 Mpc with duty factors of 74.6% and 77.0% respectively. The improvement in sensitivity and stability is a result of several upgrades to the detectors, including doubled intracavity power, the addition of an in-vacuum optical parametric oscillator for squeezed-light injection, replacement of core optics and end reaction masses, and installation of acoustic mode dampers. This paper explores the purposes behind these upgrades, and explains to the best of our knowledge the noise currently limiting the sensitivity of each detector.

Published
2022

44. All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars in the early O3 LIGO data

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, KAGRA Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y.-W., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Nguyen, T., Shinkai, H., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, KAGRA Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y.-W., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Nguyen, T., Shinkai, H., Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

We report on an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in the frequency band 20-2000\,Hz and with a frequency time derivative in the range of $[-1.0, +0.1]\times10^{-8}$\,Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby, spinning and slightly non-axisymmetric isolated neutron star in our galaxy. This search uses the LIGO data from the first six months of Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observational run, O3. No periodic gravitational wave signals are observed, and 95\%\ confidence-level (CL) frequentist upper limits are placed on their strengths. The lowest upper limits on worst-case (linearly polarized) strain amplitude $h_0$ are $~1.7\times10^{-25}$ near 200\,Hz. For a circularly polarized source (most favorable orientation), the lowest upper limits are $\sim6.3\times10^{-26}$. These strict frequentist upper limits refer to all sky locations and the entire range of frequency derivative values. For a population-averaged ensemble of sky locations and stellar orientations, the lowest 95\%\ CL upper limits on the strain amplitude are $\sim1.\times10^{-25}$. These upper limits improve upon our previously published all-sky results, with the greatest improvement (factor of $\sim$2) seen at higher frequencies, in part because quantum squeezing has dramatically improved the detector noise level relative to the second observational run, O2. These limits are the most constraining to date over most of the parameter space searched.

Published
2022

45. A Joint Fermi-GBM and LIGO/Virgo Analysis of Compact Binary Mergers from the First and Second Gravitational-wave Observing Runs

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, Minkyun, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, Minkyun, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved We present results from offline searches of Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) data for gamma-ray transients coincident with the compact binary coalescences observed by the gravitational-wave (GW) detectors Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo during their first and second observing runs. In particular, we perform follow-up for both confirmed events and low significance candidates reported in the LIGO/Virgo catalog GWTC-1. We search for temporal coincidences between these GW signals and GBM-triggered gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We also use the GBM Untargeted and Targeted subthreshold searches to find coincident gamma-rays below the onboard triggering threshold. This work implements a refined statistical approach by incorporating GW astrophysical source probabilities and GBM visibilities of LIGO/Virgo sky localizations to search for cumulative signatures of coincident subthreshold gamma-rays. All search methods recover the short gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A occurring ∼1.7 s after the binary neutron-star merger GW170817. We also present results from a new search seeking GBM counterparts to LIGO single-interferometer triggers. This search finds a candidate joint event, but given the nature of the GBM signal and localization, as well as the high joint false alarm rate of 1.1 10-6 Hz, we do not consider it an astrophysical association. We find no additional coincidences.

Published
2022

46. GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150 M ⊙

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, Minkyun, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Noh, Minkyun, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. On May 21, 2019 at 03:02:29 UTC Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observed a short duration gravitational-wave signal, GW190521, with a three-detector network signal-to-noise ratio of 14.7, and an estimated false-alarm rate of 1 in 4900 yr using a search sensitive to generic transients. If GW190521 is from a quasicircular binary inspiral, then the detected signal is consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses of 85-14+21 Mm and 66-18+17 Mm (90% credible intervals). We infer that the primary black hole mass lies within the gap produced by (pulsational) pair-instability supernova processes, with only a 0.32% probability of being below 65 Mm. We calculate the mass of the remnant to be 142-16+28 Mm, which can be considered an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH). The luminosity distance of the source is 5.3-2.6+2.4 Gpc, corresponding to a redshift of 0.82-0.34+0.28. The inferred rate of mergers similar to GW190521 is 0.13-0.11+0.30 Gpc-3 yr-1.

Published
2022

47. Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kontos, Antonios, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Published
2022

48. Constraints on Cosmic Strings Using Data from the Third Advanced LIGO–Virgo Observing Run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, KAGRA Collaboration, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y.-W., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, K. Y., Nguyen, T., Sekiguchi, Y., Shoemaker, David H, Stover, M., Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Wade, L. E., Wade, M., Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, KAGRA Collaboration, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, M., Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Ganapathy, Dhruva, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y.-W., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Jia, W., Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Knyazev, E., Komori, Kentaro, Kuns, K., Lane, B. B., Lang, Ryan N., London, L. T., MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Marx, E. J., Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Mo, Geoffrey, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, K. Y., Nguyen, T., Sekiguchi, Y., Shoemaker, David H, Stover, M., Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Wade, L. E., Wade, M., Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

We search for gravitational-wave signals produced by cosmic strings in the Advanced LIGO and Virgo full O3 data set. Search results are presented for gravitational waves produced by cosmic string loop features such as cusps, kinks and, for the first time, kink-kink collisions.cA template-based search for short-duration transient signals does not yield a detection. We also use the stochastic gravitational-wave background energy density upper limits derived from the O3 data to constrain the cosmic string tension, $G\mu$, as a function of the number of kinks, or the number of cusps, for two cosmic string loop distribution models.cAdditionally, we develop and test a third model which interpolates between these two models. Our results improve upon the previous LIGO-Virgo constraints on $G\mu$ by one to two orders of magnitude depending on the model which is tested. In particular, for one loop distribution model, we set the most competitive constraints to date, $G\mu\lesssim 4\times 10^{-15}$.

Published
2022

49. All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the second Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo run

Author

LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Zucker, Michael E, LIGO (Observatory : Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Aggarwal, Nancy, Barnum, Sam, Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Biscoveanu, Sylvia, Buikema, Aaron, Demos, Nicholas, Donovan, Frederick J, Eisenstein, Robert Alan, Evans, Matthew J, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Fishner, Jason M., Fritschel, Peter K, Gras, Slawomir, Hall, E. D., Haster, Carl-Johan, Huang, Y., Isi Banales, Maximiliano S, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Lane, B. B., Lanza Jr, Robert K, London, L. T., Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E, Mansell, Georgia, Mason, Kenneth R, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Mittleman, Richard K, Ray Pitambar Mohapatra, Satyanarayan, Ng, Kwan Yeung, Shoemaker, David H, Sudhir, Vivishek, Tse, Maggie, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Whittle, Christopher Mark, Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019 American Physical Society. 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 events have been found by either the unmodeled search or the cosmic string search. We thus present the search sensitivities for a variety of signal waveforms and report upper limits on the source rate density as a function of the characteristic frequency of the signal. These upper limits are a factor of 3 lower than the first observing run, with a 50% detection probability for gravitational-wave emissions with energies of ∼10-9 Mc2 at 153 Hz. For the search dedicated to cosmic string cusps we consider several loop distribution models, and present updated constraints from the same search done in the first observing run.

Published
2022

50. Quantum-Enhanced Advanced LIGO Detectors in the Era of Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Author

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Tse, Maggie, Yu, Haocun, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Barsotti, Lisa, Evans, Matthew, Fritschel, Peter K, Mansell, Georgia, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, J., Oelker, Eric Glenn, Phinney, Isabelle Y., Whittle, Christopher Mark, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Mittleman, Richard K, Weiss, Rainer, Yu, Hang, Zucker, Michael E, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Tse, Maggie, Yu, Haocun, Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel, Barsotti, Lisa, Evans, Matthew, Fritschel, Peter K, Mansell, Georgia, Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, McCuller, Lee P, Miller, J., Oelker, Eric Glenn, Phinney, Isabelle Y., Whittle, Christopher Mark, Biscans, Sebastien, Buikema, Aaron, Gras, Slawomir, Lane, B. B., MacInnis, Myron E, Mason, Kenneth R, Massinger, Thomas J., Mittleman, Richard K, Weiss, Rainer, Yu, Hang, and Zucker, Michael E

Abstract

© 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has been directly detecting gravitational waves from compact binary mergers since 2015. We report on the first use of squeezed vacuum states in the direct measurement of gravitational waves with the Advanced LIGO H1 and L1 detectors. This achievement is the culmination of decades of research to implement squeezed states in gravitational-wave detectors. During the ongoing O3 observation run, squeezed states are improving the sensitivity of the LIGO interferometers to signals above 50 Hz by up to 3 dB, thereby increasing the expected detection rate by 40% (H1) and 50% (L1).

Published
2022

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