All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the first Advanced LIGO observing run

TL;DR

This paper reports a comprehensive search for long-duration gravitational wave transients using LIGO data from 2015-2016, setting upper limits on event rates and demonstrating sensitivity to galactic sources.

Contribution

It introduces a search method for long-duration gravitational waves with minimal assumptions and applies it to real LIGO data, establishing new upper limits.

Findings

No significant gravitational wave events detected.

Set 90% confidence upper limits on event rates.

Sensitive to sources emitting at least 10^{-8} solar masses in gravitational waves.

Abstract

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the data of the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston second generation detectors between September 2015 and January 2016, with a total observational time of 49 days. The search targets gravitational wave transients of \unit[10 -- 500]{s} duration in a frequency band of \unit[24 -- 2048]{Hz}, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. No significant events were observed. %All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background, As a result we set 90\% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. We also show that the search is sensitive to sources in the Galaxy emitting at least $\sim$ \unit[$10^{-8}$]{$\mathrm{M_{\odot} c^2}$} in gravitational waves.