Constraints on Cosmic Strings from the LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Detectors
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Aasi-2014-Constraints on cosmic strings.pdf
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Author(s)
Barnum, Sam
Barsotti, Lisa
Bodiya, Timothy Paul
Donovan, Frederick J.
Essick, Reed Clasey
Evans, M.
Foley, S.
Fritschel, Peter K.
Gras, Slawek
Isogai, Tomoki
Date Issued
April 2014
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Aasi, J., J. Abadie, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, T. Accadia, et al. “Constraints on Cosmic Strings from the LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Detectors.” Physical Review Letters 112, no. 13 (April 2014). © 2014 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Cosmic strings can give rise to a large variety of interesting astrophysical phenomena. Among them, powerful bursts of gravitational waves (GWs) produced by cusps are a promising observational signature. In this Letter we present a search for GWs from cosmic string cusps in data collected by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors between 2005 and 2010, with over 625 days of live time. We find no evidence of GW signals from cosmic strings. From this result, we derive new constraints on cosmic string parameters, which complement and improve existing limits from previous searches for a stochastic background of GWs from cosmic microwave background measurements and pulsar timing data. In particular, if the size of loops is given by the gravitational backreaction scale, we place upper limits on the string tension Gμ below 10[superscript −8] in some regions of the cosmic string parameter space.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.131101
