corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 83 » Issue 8
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1498–1501 (1999)

Observational Limit on Gravitational Waves from Binary Neutron Stars in the Galaxy

Download: PDF (82 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

B. Allen1, J. K. Blackburn2, P. R. Brady3, J. D. E Creighton1,4, T. Creighton4, S. Droz5, A. D. Gillespie2, S. A. Hughes4, S. Kawamura2, T. T. Lyons2, J. E. Mason2, B. J. Owen4, F. J. Raab2, M. W. Regehr2, B. S. Sathyaprakash6, R. L. Savage, Jr.2, S. Whitcomb2, and A. G. Wiseman1
1Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
2LIGO Project, MS 18-34, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125
3Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
4Theoretical Astrophysics 130-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125
5Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
6Department of Physics and Astronomy, UWCC, Post Box 913, Cardiff CF2 3YB, Wales

Received 31 March 1999; published in the issue dated 23 August 1999

Using optimal matched filtering, we search 25 hours of data from the LIGO 40-m prototype laser interferometric gravitational-wave detector for gravitational-wave chirps emitted by coalescing binary systems within our Galaxy. This is the first test of this filtering technique on real interferometric data. An upper limit on the rate R of neutron star binary inspirals in our Galaxy is obtained: with 90% confidence, R<0.5h-1. Similar experiments with LIGO interferometers will provide constraints on the population of tight binary neutron star systems in the Universe.

© 1999 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1498
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1498
PACS:
95.85.Sz, 04.80.Nn, 07.05.Kf, 97.80.-d
 
< Previous Article | Next Article >