Recent searches for gravitational-wave bursts associated with magnetar flares with LIGO, GEO, and Virgo

Raymond Frey*, Sheon Chua, Andrew Wade, David McClelland, Susan Scott, Ping Lam, Daniel Shaddock

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Energetic electromagnetic flares from magnetars - highly magnetized neutron stars - are associated with sudden rearrangements of the mechanical and/or magnetic configurations of the star, which can give rise to mechanical oscillations, some of which may be strong radiators of gravitational waves. General arguments have indicated that gravitational-wave bursts associated temporally with (giant) flares from galactic magnetars may be observable with ground-based gravitational wave detectors. After discussing the expectations based on the astrophysical models, we present results from several campaigns to search for such bursts using the first generation of LIGO, GEO, and Virgo detectors over the period 2005-2009, emphasizing the most recent results. No detections have been made, and we present astrophysically informed limits. Finally, we discuss prospects for progress.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number012026
    JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
    Volume363
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012
    Event9th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Amaldi 9 and the 2011 Numerical Relativity - Data Analysis Meeting, NRDA 2011 - Cardiff, United Kingdom
    Duration: 10 Jul 201115 Jul 2011

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