Search for gravitational radiation from intermediate mass black hole binaries in data from the second LIGO-Virgo joint science run

Search for gravitational radiation from intermediate mass black hole binaries in data from the second LIGO-Virgo joint science run

This paper reports on an unmodeled, all-sky search for gravitational waves from merging intermediate mass black hole binaries (IMBHB). The search was performed on data from the second joint science run of the LIGO and Virgo detectors (July 2009–October 2010) and was sensitive to IMBHBs with a range...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barsotti, Lisa, Biscans, Sebastien, Bodiya, Timothy Paul, Donovan, Frederick J., Essick, Reed Clasey, Evans, Matthew J., Fritschel, Peter K., Gras, Slawek, Isogai, Tomoki, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, Kwee, Patrick, Lee, J., Libson, Adam, Lynch, Ryan Christopher, MacInnis, Myron E., Mason, Kenneth R., Matichard, Fabrice, Mavalvala, Nergis, Miller, John, Mittleman, Richard K., Oelker, Eric Glenn, Shoemaker, David H., Tse, Maggie, Vaulin, Ruslan, Vitale, Salvatore, Weiss, Rainer, Wipf, C. C., Zhang, Fan, Zucker, Michael E., Aggarwal, Nancy,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Physical Society 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90893
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0026-3877
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2815-7387
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6550-3045
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-2560
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1510-4921
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8459-4499
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9635-7527
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8150-7062
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2544-1596
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2700-0767
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5163-683X
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2047-3166
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-9267
Description
Summary:This paper reports on an unmodeled, all-sky search for gravitational waves from merging intermediate mass black hole binaries (IMBHB). The search was performed on data from the second joint science run of the LIGO and Virgo detectors (July 2009–October 2010) and was sensitive to IMBHBs with a range up to ∼200  Mpc, averaged over the possible sky positions and inclinations of the binaries with respect to the line of sight. No significant candidate was found. Upper limits on the coalescence-rate density of nonspinning IMBHBs with total masses between 100 and 450  M[subscript ⊙] and mass ratios between 0.25 and 1 were placed by combining this analysis with an analogous search performed on data from the first LIGO-Virgo joint science run (November 2005–October 2007). The most stringent limit was set for systems consisting of two 88  M[subscript ⊙] black holes and is equal to 0.12  Mpc[superscript −3] Myr[superscript −1] at the 90% confidence level. This paper also presents the first estimate, for the case of an unmodeled analysis, of the impact on the search range of IMBHB spin configurations: the visible volume for IMBHBs with nonspinning components is roughly doubled for a population of IMBHBs with spins aligned with the binary’s orbital angular momentum and uniformly distributed in the dimensionless spin parameter up to 0.8, whereas an analogous population with antialigned spins decreases the visible volume by ∼20%.

Similar Items