Gravitational wave bursts from cosmic (super)strings: Quantitative analysis and constraints

TL;DR

This paper develops data analysis methods for detecting gravitational wave bursts from cosmic (super)strings, estimates burst rates, and discusses how current detectors can constrain string theories.

Contribution

It introduces new techniques for analyzing gravitational wave data from multiple detectors and provides updated burst rate estimates considering realistic cosmological models.

Findings

Initial LIGO unlikely to detect standard cosmic strings

Potential to detect cosmic superstrings with current detectors

Constraints on cosmic string theories can be derived from non-detections

Abstract

We discuss data analysis techniques that can be used in the search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic strings. When data from multiple interferometers are available, we describe consistency checks that can be used to greatly reduce the false alarm rates. We construct an expression for the rate of bursts for arbitrary cosmic string loop distributions and apply it to simple known solutions. The cosmology is solved exactly and includes the effects of a late-time acceleration. We find substantially lower burst rates than previous estimates suggest and explain the disagreement. Initial LIGO is unlikely to detect field theoretic cosmic strings with the usual loop sizes, though it may detect cosmic superstrings as well as cosmic strings and superstrings with non-standard loop sizes (which may be more realistic). In the absence of a detection, we show how to set upper limits based on the loudest event. Using Initial LIGO sensitivity curves, we show that these upper limits may result in interesting constraints on the parameter space of theories that lead to the production of cosmic strings.