Probing the Pulsar Explanation of the Galactic-Center GeV Excess Using Continuous Gravitational-Wave Searches

Over 10 years ago, Fermi observed an excess of GeV gamma rays from the Galactic Center whose origin is still under debate. One explanation for this excess involves annihilating dark matter, another requires an unresolved population of millisecond pulsars concentrated at the Galactic Center. In this work, we use the results from LIGO and Virgo's most recent all-sky search for quasimonochromatic, persistent gravitational-wave signals from isolated neutron stars, which is estimated to be about 20%-50% of the population, to determine whether unresolved millisecond pulsars could actually explain this excess. First, we choose a luminosity function that determines the number of millisecond pulsars required to explain the observed excess. Then, we consider two models for deformations on millisecond pulsars to determine their ellipticity distributions, which are directly related to their gravitational-wave radiation. Lastly, based on null results from the O3 frequency-Hough all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves, we find that a large set of the parameter space in the pulsar luminosity function can be excluded. We also evaluate how these exclusion regions may change with respect to various model choices. Our results are the first of their kind and represent a bridge between gamma-ray astrophysics, gravitational-wave astronomy, and dark-matter physics.

Status and Perspectives of Continuous Gravitational Wave Searches

The birth of gravitational wave astronomy was triggered by the first detection of a signal produced by the merger of two compact objects (also known as a compact binary coalescence event). The following detections made by the Earth-based network of advanced interferometers had a significant impact in many fields of science: astrophysics, cosmology, nuclear physics and fundamental physics. However, compact binary coalescence signals are not the only type of gravitational waves potentially detectable by LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA. An interesting family of still undetected signals, and the ones that are considered in this review, are the so-called continuous waves, paradigmatically exemplified by the gravitational radiation emitted by galactic, fast-spinning isolated neutron stars with a certain degree of asymmetry in their mass distribution. In this work, I will review the status and the latest results from the analyses of advanced detector data.

Search Methods for Continuous Gravitational-Wave Signals from Unknown Sources in the Advanced-Detector Era

Continuous gravitational waves are long-lasting forms of gravitational radiation produced by persistent quadrupolar variations of matter. Standard expected sources for ground-based interferometric detectors are neutron stars presenting non-axisymmetries such as crustal deformations, r-modes or free precession. More exotic sources could include decaying ultralight boson clouds around spinning black holes. A rich suite of data-analysis methods spanning a wide bracket of thresholds between sensitivity and computational efficiency has been developed during the last decades to search for these signals. In this work, we review the current state of searches for continuous gravitational waves using ground-based interferometer data, focusing on searches for unknown sources. These searches typically consist of a main stage followed by several post-processing steps to rule out outliers produced by detector noise. So far, no continuous gravitational wave signal has been confidently detected, although tighter upper limits are placed as detectors and search methods are further developed.

Advanced Virgo: Status of the Detector, Latest Results and Future Prospects

The Virgo detector, based at the EGO (European Gravitational Observatory) and located in Cascina (Pisa), played a significant role in the development of the gravitational-wave astronomy. From its first scientific run in 2007, the Virgo detector has constantly been upgraded over the years; since 2017, with the Advanced Virgo project, the detector reached a high sensitivity that allowed the detection of several classes of sources and to investigate new physics. This work reports the main hardware upgrades of the detector and the main astrophysical results from the latest five years; future prospects for the Virgo detector are also presented.

Continuous Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis with General Purpose Computing on Graphic Processing Units

We present a new approach to searching for Continuous gravitational Waves (CWs) emitted by isolated rotating neutron stars, using the high parallel computing efficiency and computational power of modern Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). Specifically, in this paper the porting of one of the algorithms used to search for CW signals, the so-called FrequencyHough transform, on the TensorFlow framework, is described. The new code has been fully tested and its performance on GPUs has been compared to those in a CPU multicore system of the same class, showing a factor of 10 speed-up. This demonstrates that GPU programming with general purpose libraries (the those of the TensorFlow framework) of a high-level programming language can provide a significant improvement of the performance of data analysis, opening new perspectives on wide-parameter searches for CWs.

Geometric Approach to Analytic Marginalisation of the Likelihood Ratio for Continuous Gravitational Wave Searches

The likelihood ratio for a continuous gravitational wave signal is viewed geometrically as a function of the orientation of two vectors; one representing the optimal signal-to-noise ratio, and the other representing the maximised likelihood ratio or F-statistic. Analytic marginalisation over the angle between the vectors yields a marginalised likelihood ratio, which is a function of the F-statistic. Further analytic marginalisation over the optimal signal-to-noise ratio is explored using different choices of prior. Monte-Carlo simulations show that the marginalised likelihood ratios had identical detection power to the F-statistic. This approach demonstrates a route to viewing the F-statistic in a Bayesian context, while retaining the advantages of its efficient computation.

Signatures of Lorentz Violation in Continuous Gravitational-Wave Spectra of Ellipsoidal Neutron Stars

We studied the effects of the Lorentz invariance violation on the rotation of neutron stars (NSs) in the minimal gravitational Standard-Model Extension framework, and calculated the quadrupole radiation generated by them. Aiming at testing Lorentz invariance with observations of continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from rotating NSs in the future, we compared the GW spectra of a rotating ellipsoidal NS under Lorentz-violating gravity with those of a Lorentz-invariant one. The former were found to possess frequency components higher than the second harmonic, which does not happen for the latter, indicating those higher frequency components to be potential signatures of Lorentz violation in continuous GW spectra of rotating NSs.

Results from the First All-Sky Search for Continuous Gravitational Waves from Small-Ellipticity Sources

We present the results of an all-sky search for continuous gravitational-wave signals with frequencies in the 500-1700 Hz range targeting neutron stars with ellipticity of 10^{-8}. The search is done on LIGO O2 data using the Falcon analysis pipeline. The results presented here double the sensitivity over any other result on the same data [B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 100, 024004 (2019)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.100.024004, C. Palomba et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 171101 (2019)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.123.171101]. The search is capable of detecting low-ellipticity sources up to 170 pc. We establish strict upper limits which hold for worst-case signal parameters. We list outliers uncovered by the search, including several which we cannot associate with any known instrumental cause.

Two-Dimensional Correlation Function of Binary Black Hole Coalescences

We compute the two-dimensional correlation functions of the binary black hole coalescence detections in LIGO-Virgo’s first and second observation runs. The sky distribution of binary black hole coalescence events is tested for correlations at different angular scales by comparing the observed correlation function to two reference functions that are obtained from mock datasets of localization error regions uniformly distributed in the sky. No excess correlation at any angular scale is found. The power-law slope of the correlation function is estimated to be γ = 2.24 ± 0.33 at the three- σ confidence level, a value consistent with the measured distribution of galaxies.

First All-Sky Search for Continuous Gravitational-Wave Signals from Unknown Neutron Stars in Binary Systems Using Advanced LIGO Data

Rotating neutron stars can emit continuous gravitational waves, which have not yet been detected. We present a search for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars in binary systems with orbital period between 15 and 45 days. This is the first time that Advanced LIGO data and the recently developed BinarySkyHough pipeline have been used in a search of this kind. No detections are reported, and upper limits on the gravitational-wave amplitude are calculated, which improve the previous results by a factor of 17.

Continuous Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars: Current Status and Prospects

Gravitational waves astronomy allows us to study objects and events invisible in electromagnetic waves. It is crucial to validate the theories and models of the most mysterious and extreme matter in the Universe: the neutron stars. In addition to inspirals and mergers of neutrons stars, there are currently a few proposed mechanisms that can trigger radiation of long-lasting gravitational radiation from neutron stars, such as e.g., elastically and/or magnetically driven deformations: mountains on the stellar surface supported by the elastic strain or magnetic field, free precession, or unstable oscillation modes (e.g., the r-modes). The astrophysical motivation for continuous gravitational waves searches, current LIGO and Virgo strategies of data analysis and prospects are reviewed in this work.

Direct Constraints on the Ultralight Boson Mass from Searches of Continuous Gravitational Waves

Superradiance can trigger the formation of an ultralight boson cloud around a spinning black hole. Once formed, the boson cloud is expected to emit a nearly periodic, long-duration, gravitational-wave signal. For boson masses in the range (10^{-13}-10^{-11})  eV, and stellar mass black holes, such signals are potentially detectable by gravitational-wave detectors, like Advanced LIGO and Virgo. In this Letter, we present full band upper limits for a generic all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO O2 data, and use them to derive-for the first time-direct constraints on the ultralight scalar boson field mass.

Sensitivity Improvements in the Search for Periodic Gravitational Waves Using O1 LIGO Data

We demonstrate a breakthrough in the capabilities of robust, broad-parameter space searches for continuous gravitational waves. With a large scale search for continuous gravitational waves on the O1 LIGO data, we prove that our Falcon search achieves the sensitivity improvements expected from the use of a long coherence length, while maintaining the computational expense within manageable bounds. On these data we set the most constraining upper limits in the gravitational wave amplitude in the band 100-200 Hz. We provide full outlier lists and upper limits near the 0-spin-down band suitable for analysis of signals with small spin-down such as boson condensates around black holes.