Showing papers by "Matthew Pitkin published in 2006"
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TL;DR: The GEO-HF project as mentioned in this paper is a project to improve the sensitivity of the GEO detector by small sequential upgrades some of which will be tested in prototypes first, and the development, test and installation of these upgrades are named as the "Geo-HF Project."
Abstract: The GEO 600 gravitational wave detector uses advanced technologies including signal recycling and monolithic fused-silica suspensions to achieve a sensitivity close to the kilometre scale LIGO and VIRGO detectors. As soon as the design sensitivity of GEO 600 is reached, the detector will be operated as part of the worldwide network to acquire data of scientific interest. The limited infrastructure at the GEO site does not allow for a major upgrade of the detector. Hence the GEO collaboration decided to improve the sensitivity of the GEO detector by small sequential upgrades some of which will be tested in prototypes first. The development, test and installation of these upgrades are named 'The GEO-HF Project.' This paper describes the upgrades considered in the GEO-HF project as well as their scientific reasons. We will describe the changes in the GEO 600 infrastructure and the prototype work that is planned to support these upgrades. Finally, we will point to some laboratory research that identifies new technologies or optical configurations that might undergo a transition into detector subsystems within the GEO-HF project.
153 citations
TL;DR: The German/British project GEO600 achieved an instrumental duty cycle of 97% with a peak sensitivity of 7 × 10−22 Hz−1/2 at 1 kHz.
Abstract: Of all the large interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, the German/British project GEO600 is the only one which uses dual recycling. During the four weeks of the international S4 data-taking run it reached an instrumental duty cycle of 97% with a peak sensitivity of 7 × 10−22 Hz−1/2 at 1 kHz. This paper describes the status during S4 and improvements thereafter.
135 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a search for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspirals in the data from the second science run of the LIGO interferometers was reported. But no events that could be identified as gravitational waves in the 385.6 hours of data that they searched.
Abstract: We report on a search for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspirals in the data from the second science run of the LIGO interferometers. The search focused on binary systems with component masses between 3 and 20M⊙. Optimally oriented binaries with distances up to 1 Mpc could be detected with efficiency of at least 90%. We found no events that could be identified as gravitational waves in the 385.6 hours of data that we searched.
87 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors search for coincident gravitational wave signals from inspiralling neutron star binaries using LIGO and TAMA300 data taken during early 2003 using a simple trigger exchange method.
Abstract: We search for coincident gravitational wave signals from inspiralling neutron star binaries using LIGO and TAMA300 data taken during early 2003. Using a simple trigger exchange method, we perform an intercollaboration coincidence search during times when TAMA300 and only one of the LIGO sites were operational. We find no evidence of any gravitational wave signals. We place an observational upper limit on the rate of binary neutron star coalescence with component masses between 1 and 3M⊙ of 49 per year per Milky Way equivalent galaxy at a 90% confidence level. The methods developed during this search will find application in future network inspiral analyses.
45 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a search for gravitational-wave bursts in data from the three LIGO interferometric detectors during their third science run was reported. But no gravitational-warp signals were detected in the eight days of analysed data.
Abstract: We report on a search for gravitational-wave bursts in data from the three LIGO interferometric detectors during their third science run. The search targets sub-second bursts in the frequency range 100–1100 Hz for which no waveform model is assumed and has a sensitivity in terms of the root-sum-square (rss) strain amplitude of hrss ~ 10−20 Hz−1/2. No gravitational-wave signals were detected in the eight days of analysed data.
43 citations
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: The LIGO interferometers are operating as gravitational wave observatories, with a noise level near an order of magnitude of the goal and the first scientific data recently taken as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The LIGO interferometers are operating as gravitational wave observatories, with a noise level near an order of magnitude of the goal and the first scientific data recently taken. This data has been analyzed for four different categories of gravitational wave sources; millisecond bursts, inspiralling binary neutron stars, periodic waves from a known pulsar, and stochastic background. Research and development is also underway for the next generation LIGO detector, Advanced LIGO.
2 citations