Published in

American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 13(112), 2014

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.112.131101

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Constraints on cosmic strings from the LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave detectors

Journal article published in 2014 by A. D. Virgilio, J.~F.~J F. J. van den Brand, A.~P.~M P. M. ter Braack, S. van der Putten, M. V. van der Sluys, J. van Heijningen, A.~A A. van Veggel, T. G. F., M. V. Van, A. A. Van, S. S. Y., R. D. Rosa, W. D. Pozzo, I. D. Palma, R. W. P. and other authors.
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

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 10⁻⁸ in some regions of the cosmic string parameter space. ; J. Aasi . D. J. Hosken . W. Kim . E. J. King . J. Munch . D. J. Ottaway . P. J. Veitch . et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration) ; D. J. Hosken . W. Kim . E. J. King . J. Munch . D. J. Ottaway . P. J. Veitch are members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration or the Virgo Collaboration