Results of an all-sky high-frequency Einstein@Home search for continuous gravitational waves in LIGO's fifth science run

TL;DR

This study conducted a high-frequency all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in LIGO's S5 data using Einstein@Home, setting upper limits on strain amplitudes and constraining neutron star ellipticities within 100 parsecs.

Contribution

It is the first dedicated high-frequency continuous gravitational wave search on S5 data, providing new upper limits and astrophysical constraints.

Findings

No significant gravitational wave candidates found.

Upper limits on strain amplitude range from 5.0×10⁻²⁴ to 6.2×10⁻²⁴.

Constraints exclude highly elliptic neutron stars within 100 parsecs.

Abstract

We present results of a high-frequency all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated compact objects in LIGO's 5th Science Run (S5) data, using the computing power of the Einstein@Home volunteer computing project. This is the only dedicated continuous gravitational wave search that probes this high frequency range on S5 data. We find no significant candidate signal, so we set 90%-confidence level upper-limits on continuous gravitational wave strain amplitudes. At the lower end of the search frequency range, around 1250 Hz, the most constraining upper-limit is $5.0\times 10^{-24}$, while at the higher end, around 1500 Hz, it is $6.2\times 10^{-24}$. Based on these upper-limits, and assuming a fiducial value of the principal moment of inertia of $10^{38}$kg$\,$m$^2$, we can exclude objects with ellipticities higher than roughly $2.8\times10^{-7}$ within 100 pc of Earth with rotation periods between 1.3 and 1.6 milliseconds.