Published November 25, 2021 | Version Submitted
Discussion Paper Open

Searches for Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars at Two Harmonics in the Second and Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Runs

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Abstract

We present a targeted search for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from 236 pulsars using data from the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo (O3) combined with data from the second observing run (O2). Searches were for emission from the l=m=2 mass quadrupole mode with a frequency at only twice the pulsar rotation frequency (single harmonic) and the l=2,m=1,2 modes with a frequency of both once and twice the rotation frequency (dual harmonic). No evidence of GWs was found so we present 95% credible upper limits on the strain amplitudes h0 for the single harmonic search along with limits on the pulsars' mass quadrupole moments Q₂₂ and ellipticities ε. Of the pulsars studied, 23 have strain amplitudes that are lower than the limits calculated from their electromagnetically measured spin-down rates. These pulsars include the millisecond pulsars J0437-4715 and J0711-6830 which have spin-down ratios of 0.87 and 0.57 respectively. For nine pulsars, their spin-down limits have been surpassed for the first time. For the Crab and Vela pulsars our limits are factors of ∼100 and ∼20 more constraining than their spin-down limits, respectively. For the dual harmonic searches, new limits are placed on the strain amplitudes C₂₁ and C₂₂. For 23 pulsars we also present limits on the emission amplitude assuming dipole radiation as predicted by Brans-Dicke theory.

Additional Information

This material is based upon work supported by NSF's LIGO Laboratory which is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector and the creation and support of the EGO consortium. The authors also gratefully acknowledge research support from these agencies as well as by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Department of Science and Technology, India, the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and Ministerio de Universidades, the Conselleria de Fons Europeus, Universitat i Cultura and the Direccio General de Politica Universitaria i Recerca del Govern de les Illes Balears, the Conselleria d'Innovacio, Universitats, Ciencia i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana and the CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, the National Science Centre of Poland and the European Union - European Regional Development Fund; Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Science Foundation, the European Commission, the European Social Funds (ESF), the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA), the French Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO), the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS), Actions de Recherche Concertees (ARC) and Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen (FWO), Belgium, the Paris Ile-de-France Region, the National Research, Development and Innovation Office Hungary (NKFIH), the National Research Foundation of Korea, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada, Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovations, the International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Research Corporation, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan, the United States Department of Energy, and the Kavli Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, INFN and CNRS for provision of computational resources. This work was supported by MEXT, JSPS Leading- edge Research Infrastructure Program, JSPS Grant-in- Aid for Specially Promoted Research 26000005, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas 2905: JP17H06358, JP17H06361 and JP17H06364, JSPS Core-to-Core Program A. Advanced Research Net- works, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) 17H06133 and 20H05639, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) 20A203: JP20H05854, the joint research program of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, National Research Foundation (NRF) and Computing Infrastructure Project of KISTI-GSDC in Korea, Academia Sinica (AS), AS Grid Center (ASGC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in Taiwan under grants including AS-CDA-105-M06, Advanced Technology Center (ATC) of NAOJ, Mechanical Engineering Center of KEK. The Nancay Radio Observatory is operated by the Paris Observatory, associated with the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). We acknowledge financial support from "Programme National de Cosmologie et Galaxies" (PNCG) and "Programme National Hautes Energies" (PNHE) of CNRS/INSU, France. We are grateful to the staff of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, which is operated by the National Research Council of Canada. CHIME is funded by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) 2012 Leading Edge Fund (Project 31170) and by contributions from the provinces of British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario. The CHIME/FRB Project, which enabled development in common with the CHIME/Pulsar instrument, is funded by a grant from the CFI 2015 Innovation Fund (Project 33213) and by contributions from the provinces of British Columbia and Quebec, and by the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Additional support was provided by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), McGill University and the McGill Space Institute thanks to the Trottier Family Foundation, and the University of British Columbia. The CHIME/Pulsar instrument hardware was funded by NSERC RTI-1 grant EQPEQ 458893-2014. This research was enabled in part by support provided by WestGrid (www.westgrid.ca) and Compute Canada (www.computecanada.ca). J.W.M. is a CITA Postdoctoral Fellow: This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference #CITA 490888-16. Pulsar research at UBC is supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (I.H.S.). K.C. is supported by a UBC Four Year Fellowship (6456). D. An. acknowledges support from an EPSRC/STFC fellowship (EP/T017325/1). W.C.G.H. acknowledges support through grants 80NSSC19K1444 and 80NSSC21K0091 from NASA. This work is supported by NASA through the NICER mission and the Astrophysics Explorers Program and uses data and software provided by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), which is a service of the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA/GSFC and High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. We would like to thank all of the essential workers who put their health at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, without whom we would not have been able to complete this work.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
114539
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20220502-145359645

Funding

NSF
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Max-Planck-Society
State of Niedersachsen/Germany
Australian Research Council
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India)
Department of Science and Technology (India)
Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)
Ministry of Human Resource Development (India)
Agencia Estatal de Investigación
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
Ministerio de Universidades
Conselleria de Fons Europeus, Universitat i Cultura
Direccio General de Politica Universitaria i Recerca del Govern de les Illes Balears
Conselleria d'Innovacio, Universitats, Ciencia i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana
Generalitat de Catalunya
National Science Centre (Poland)
Foundation for Polish Science
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Russian Foundation for Basic Research
Russian Science Foundation
European Commission
European Social Funds
European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)
Royal Society
Scottish Funding Council
Scottish Universities Physics Alliance
Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA)
Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO)
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS)
Actions de Recherche Concertées (ARC)
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO)
Paris Île-de-France Region
National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Hungary)
National Research Foundation of Korea
Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (MCTIC)
International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR)
Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Leverhulme Trust
Research Corporation
Department of Energy (DOE)
Kavli Foundation
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
26000005
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06358
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06361
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP17H06364
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
17H06133
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
20H05639
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
20A203
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP20H05854
Institute for Cosmic Ray Research
University of Tokyo
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI)
Academia Sinica
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
AS-CDA-105-M06
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
Programme National de Cosmologie et Galaxies (PNCG)
Programme National Hautes Energies (PNHE)
Canada Foundation for Innovation
31170
Canada Foundation for Innovation
33213
Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
McGill University
McGill Space Institute
Trottier Family Foundation
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
EQPEQ 458893-2014
WestGrid
Compute Canada
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
CITA 490888-16
University of British Columbia
6456
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
EP/T017325/1
NASA
80NSSC19K1444
NASA
80NSSC21K0091

Dates

Created
2022-05-02
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-06-02
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
LIGO, Astronomy Department
Other Numbering System Name
LIGO Document
Other Numbering System Identifier
P2100049