Published November 21, 2008 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Search for Gravitational-Wave Bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters

Creators

Abstract

We present a LIGO search for short-duration gravitational waves (GWs) associated with soft gamma ray repeater (SGR) bursts. This is the first search sensitive to neutron star f modes, usually considered the most efficient GW emitting modes. We find no evidence of GWs associated with any SGR burst in a sample consisting of the 27 Dec. 2004 giant flare from SGR 1806-20 and 190 lesser events from SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14. The unprecedented sensitivity of the detectors allows us to set the most stringent limits on transient GW amplitudes published to date. We find upper limit estimates on the model-dependent isotropic GW emission energies (at a nominal distance of 10 kpc) between 3×10^(45) and 9×10^(52) erg depending on waveform type, detector antenna factors and noise characteristics at the time of the burst. These upper limits are within the theoretically predicted range of some SGR models.

Additional Information

© 2008 The American Physical Society. Received 1 September 2008; published 21 November 2008. The authors are grateful to the Konus-Wind team and to S. Mereghetti for information used in the S5 burst list, and to G. Lichti and D. Smith for information on the giant flare event time. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society, and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the research by these agencies and by the Australian Research Council, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of Italy, the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia, the Conselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes Balears, the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Carnegie Trust, the Leverhulme Trust, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. K. C. H. is grateful for support under JPL contracts 1282043 and 1268385, and NASA grants NAG5-11451 and NNG04GM50G.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
15998
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20090922-145122645

Funding

Australian Research Council
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India)
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)
Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (MEC)
Conselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes Balears
Royal Society
Scottish Funding Council
Scottish Universities Physics Alliance
NASA
Carnegie Trust
Leverhulme Trust
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Research Corporation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
JPL
1282043
JPL
1268385
NASA
NAG5-11451
NASA
NNG04GM50G

Dates

Created
2009-09-28
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-08
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
TAPIR, LIGO