Observational constraints on the spin/anisotropy of the CCOs of Cassiopeia A, Vela Jr. and G347.3-0.5 and a single surviving continuous gravitational wave candidate

TL;DR

This study conducted the deepest search for continuous gravitational waves from three neutron stars, setting new constraints on their properties and identifying a single promising candidate for further investigation.

Contribution

It provides the most stringent constraints to date on gravitational-wave amplitude, ellipticity, r-mode saturation, and crustal anisotropy of neutron stars, and reports a surviving candidate.

Findings

Set new upper limits on gravitational-wave amplitude and neutron star properties.

Identified one candidate that survives all follow-up stages.

Provided phase parameters for the candidate to facilitate future checks.

Abstract

We carry out the deepest and broadest search for continuous gravitational-wave signals from three neutron stars at the center of the supernova remnants Cassiopeia A, Vela Jr., and G347.3-0.5. This search was made possible by the computing power shared by thousands of Einstein@Home volunteers. After the initial Einstein@Home search, which used O3a data, we perform a multi-stage follow-up of the most promising $\approx$ 45 million signal candidates. In the last stages, we use independent data (O3b and O4a) to further investigate the remaining candidates from the previous stages. We set the most stringent constraints to date on the gravitational-wave amplitude, equatorial ellipticity, r-mode saturation amplitude, and -- for the first time -- the neutron-star crustal anisotropy. For spin periods lower than 2 ms we constrain the ellipticity to be smaller than $4\times 10^{-7}$ for all targets. We exclude crustal anisotropy values larger than $5\times 10^{-3}$ for spin periods between 1.3--100 ms. Only one candidate -- from the G347.3 search -- survives all follow-ups. We illustrate properties of this candidate. Investigations on new data will aid in clarifying its nature. Such ``new" data already exist, O4b and O4c, and would be optimal for this purpose, but they are not publicly accessible at the time of writing. In the appendix we provide our estimate of the candidate phase parameters, which are useful for others to carry out checks on the new data.