We present the results of a LIGO search for gravitational waves (GWs) associated with GRB 051103, a short-duration hard-spectrum gamma-ray burst (GRB) whose electromagnetically determined sky ...position is coincident with the spiral galaxy M81, which is 3.6 Mpc from Earth. Possible progenitors for short-hard GRBs include compact object mergers and soft gamma repeater (SGR) giant flares. A merger progenitor would produce a characteristic GW signal that should be detectable at the distance of M81, while GW emission from an SGR is not expected to be detectable at that distance. We found no evidence of a GW signal associated with GRB 051103. Assuming weakly beamed gamma-ray emission with a jet semi-angle of 30 deg we exclude a binary neutron star merger in M81 as the progenitor with a confidence of 98%. Neutron star-black hole mergers are excluded with > 99% confidence. If the event occurred in M81 our findings support the the hypothesis that GRB 051103 was due to an SGR giant flare, making it the most distant extragalactic magnetar observed to date.
We present a search for periodic gravitational waves from the neutron star in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The search coherently analyzes data in a 12-day interval taken from the fifth science ...run of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. It searches gravitational wave frequencies from 100 to 300 Hz, and covers a wide range of first and second frequency derivatives appropriate for the age of the remnant and for different spin-down mechanisms. No gravitational wave signal was detected. Within the range of search frequencies, we set 95% confidence upper limits of 0.7--1.2e-24 on the intrinsic gravitational wave strain, 0.4--4e-4 on the equatorial ellipticity of the neutron star, and 0.005--0.14 on the amplitude of r-mode oscillations of the neutron star. These direct upper limits beat indirect limits derived from energy conservation and enter the range of theoretical predictions involving crystalline exotic matter or runaway r-modes. This is the first gravitational wave search to present upper limits on r-modes.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a network of three detectors built to detect local perturbations in the space-time metric from astrophysical sources. These ...detectors, two in Hanford, WA and one in Livingston, LA, are power-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers. In their fifth science run (S5), between November 2005 and October 2007, these detectors accumulated one year of triple coincident data while operating at their designed sensitivity. In this paper, we describe the calibration of the instruments in the S5 data set, including measurement techniques and uncertainty estimation.
Visible-light long baseline interferometry holds the promise of advancing a number of important applications in fundamental astronomy, including the direct measurement of the angular diameters and ...oblateness of stars, and the direct measurement of the orbits of binary and multiple star systems. To advance, the field of visible-light interferometry requires development of instruments capable of combining light from 15 baselines (6 telescopes) simultaneously. The Visible Imaging System for Interferometric Observations at NPOI (VISION) is a new visible light beam combiner for the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) that uses single-mode fibers to coherently combine light from up to six telescopes simultaneously with an image-plane combination scheme. It features a photometric camera for calibrations and spatial filtering from single-mode fibers with two Andor Ixon electron multiplying CCDs. This paper presents the VISION system, results of laboratory tests, and results of commissioning on-sky observations. A new set of corrections have been determined for the power spectrum and bispectrum by taking into account non-Gaussian statistics and read noise present in electron-multipying CCDs to enable measurement of visibilities and closure phases in the VISION post-processing pipeline. The post-processing pipeline has been verified via new on-sky observations of the O-type supergiant binary ζ Orionis A, obtaining a flux ratio of 2.18 0.13 with a position angle of 223 9 1 0 and separation 40.6 1.8 mas over 570-750 nm, in good agreement with expectations from the previously published orbit.
Visible-light long baseline interferometry holds the promise of advancing a number of important applications in fundamental astronomy, including the direct measurement of the angular diameters and ...oblateness of stars, and the direct measurement of the orbits of binary and multiple star systems. To advance, the field of visible-light interferometry requires development of instruments capable of combining light from 15 baselines (6 telescopes) simultaneously. The Visible Imaging System for Interferometric Observations at NPOI (VISION) is a new visible light beam combiner for the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) that uses single-mode fibers to coherently combine light from up to six telescopes simultaneously with an image-plane combination scheme. It features a photometric camera for calibrations and spatial filtering from single-mode fibers with two Andor Ixon electron multiplying CCDs. This paper presents the VISION system, results of laboratory tests, and results of commissioning on-sky observations. A new set of corrections have been determined for the power spectrum and bispectrum by taking into account non-Gaussian statistics and read noise present in electron-multipying CCDs to enable measurement of visibilities and closure phases in the VISION post-processing pipeline. The post-processing pipeline has been verified via new on-sky observations of the O-type supergiant binary \(\zeta\) Orionis A, obtaining a flux ratio of \(2.18\pm0.13\) mag with a position angle of \(223.9\pm1.0^{\circ}\) and separation \(40.6\pm1.8\) mas over 570-750 nm, in good agreement with expectations from the previously published orbit.
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