Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO's S5 Data

Author

Benjamin P. Abbott
Marco Cavaglia, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow
For full list of authors, see publisher's website.

Abstract

We have searched for gravitational waves from coalescing low mass compact binary systems with a total mass between 2M_⊙ and 35M_⊙ and a minimum component mass of 1M_⊙ using data from the first year of the fifth science run of the three LIGO detectors, operating at design sensitivity. Depending on the mass, we are sensitive to coalescences as far as 150 Mpc from the Earth. No gravitational-wave signals were observed above the expected background. Assuming a population of compact binary objects with a Gaussian mass distribution representing binary neutron star systems, black hole-neutron star binary systems, and binary black hole systems, we calculate the 90% confidence upper limit on the rate of coalescences to be 3.9x10^-2yr^-1L₁₀^-1, 1.1x10^-2yr^-1L₁₀^-1, and 2.5x10^-3yr^-1L₁₀^-1, respectively, where L₁₀ is 10¹⁰ times the blue solar luminosity. We also set improved upper limits on the rate of compact binary coalescences per unit blue-light luminosity, as a function of mass.

Recommended Citation

B. P. Abbott et al., "Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO's S5 Data," Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology, vol. 79, no. 12, American Physical Society (APS), Jun 2009.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.122001

Department(s)

Physics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1550-7998

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2009 American Physical Society (APS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 2009