| 1. |
- Adrian-Martinez, S., et al.
(författare)
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A first search for coincident gravitational waves and high energy neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.
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| 2. |
- Aasi, J., et al.
(författare)
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Parameter estimation for compact binary coalescence signals with the first generation gravitational-wave detector network
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology). - 1550-2368. ; 88:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Compact binary systems with neutron stars or black holes are one of the most promising sources for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. Gravitational radiation encodes rich information about source physics; thus parameter estimation and model selection are crucial analysis steps for any detection candidate events. Detailed models of the anticipated waveforms enable inference on several parameters, such as component masses, spins, sky location and distance, that are essential for new astrophysical studies of these sources. However, accurate measurements of these parameters and discrimination of models describing the underlying physics are complicated by artifacts in the data, uncertainties in the waveform models and in the calibration of the detectors. Here we report such measurements on a selection of simulated signals added either in hardware or software to the data collected by the two LIGO instruments and the Virgo detector during their most recent joint science run, including a "blind injection'' where the signal was not initially revealed to the collaboration. We exemplify the ability to extract information about the source physics on signals that cover the neutron-star and black-hole binary parameter space over the component mass range 1M(circle dot)-25M(circle dot) and the full range of spin parameters. The cases reported in this study provide a snapshot of the status of parameter estimation in preparation for the operation of advanced detectors.
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| 3. |
- Aasi, J., et al.
(författare)
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Search for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspiral, merger, and ringdown in LIGO-Virgo data from 2009-2010
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology). - 1550-2368. ; 87:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report a search for gravitational waves from the inspiral, merger and ringdown of binary black holes (BBH) with total mass between 25 and 100 solar masses, in data taken at the LIGO and Virgo observatories between July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010. The maximum sensitive distance of the detectors over this period for a (20, 20)M-circle dot coalescence was 300 Mpc. No gravitational wave signals were found. We thus report upper limits on the astrophysical coalescence rates of BBH as a function of the component masses for nonspinning components, and also evaluate the dependence of the search sensitivity on component spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We find an upper limit at 90% confidence on the coalescence rate of BBH with nonspinning components of mass between 19 and 28M(circle dot) of 3:3 x 10(-7) mergers Mpc(-3) yr(-1).
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| 4. |
- Aasi, J., et al.
(författare)
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The characterization of Virgo data and its impact on gravitational-wave searches
- 2012
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Ingår i: Classical and Quantum Gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 1361-6382 .- 0264-9381. ; 29:15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Between 2007 and 2010 Virgo collected data in coincidence with the LIGO and GEO gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. These data have been searched for GWs emitted by cataclysmic phenomena in the universe, by non-axisymmetric rotating neutron stars or from a stochastic background in the frequency band of the detectors. The sensitivity of GW searches is limited by noise produced by the detector or its environment. It is therefore crucial to characterize the various noise sources in a GW detector. This paper reviews the Virgo detector noise sources, noise propagation, and conversion mechanisms which were identified in the three first Virgo observing runs. In many cases, these investigations allowed us to mitigate noise sources in the detector, or to selectively flag noise events and discard them from the data. We present examples from the joint LIGO-GEO-Virgo GW searches to show how well noise transients and narrow spectral lines have been identified and excluded from the Virgo data. We also discuss how detector characterization can improve the astrophysical reach of GW searches.
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| 5. |
- Evans, P. A., et al.
(författare)
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Swift Follow-up Observations of Candidate Gravitational-wave Transient Events
- 2012
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Ingår i: The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 203:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their 2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network of GW detectors (within less than 10 minutes) and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift observatory (within 12 hr). Image transient detection was used to analyze the collected electromagnetic data, which were found to be consistent with background. Off-line analysis of the GW data alone has also established that the selected GW events show no evidence of an astrophysical origin; one of them is consistent with background and the other one was a test, part of a "blind injection challenge." With this work we demonstrate the feasibility of rapid follow-ups of GW transients and establish the sensitivity improvement joint electromagnetic and GW observations could bring. This is a first step toward an electromagnetic follow-up program in the regime of routine detections with the advanced GW instruments expected within this decade. In that regime, multi-wavelength observations will play a significant role in completing the astrophysical identification of GW sources. We present the methods and results from this first combined analysis and discuss its implications in terms of sensitivity for the present and future instruments.
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| 6. |
- Aasi, J., et al.
(författare)
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Einstein@Home all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S5 data
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology). - 1550-2368. ; 87:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents results of an all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency range [50, 1190] Hz and with frequency derivative range of similar to[-20, 1.1] x 10(-10) Hz s(-1) for the fifth LIGO science run (S5). The search uses a noncoherent Hough-transform method to combine the information from coherent searches on time scales of about one day. Because these searches are very computationally intensive, they have been carried out with the Einstein@Home volunteer distributed computing project. Postprocessing identifies eight candidate signals; deeper follow-up studies rule them out. Hence, since no gravitational wave signals have been found, we report upper limits on the intrinsic gravitational wave strain amplitude h(0). For example, in the 0.5 Hz-wide band at 152.5 Hz, we can exclude the presence of signals with h(0) greater than 7.6 x 10(-25) at a 90% confidence level. This search is about a factor 3 more sensitive than the previous Einstein@Home search of early S5 LIGO data.
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| 7. |
- Ade, P. A. R., et al.
(författare)
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Planck 2015 results XIV. Dark energy and modified gravity
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 594
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the implications of Planck data for models of dark energy (DE) and modified gravity (MG) beyond the standard cosmological constant scenario. We start with cases where the DE only directly affects the background evolution, considering Taylor expansions of the equation of state w(a), as well as principal component analysis and parameterizations related to the potential of a minimally coupled DE scalar field. When estimating the density of DE at early times, we significantly improve present constraints and find that it has to be below similar to 2% (at 95% confidence) of the critical density, even when forced to play a role for z < 50 only. We then move to general parameterizations of the DE or MG perturbations that encompass both effective field theories and the phenomenology of gravitational potentials in MG models. Lastly, we test a range of specific models, such as k-essence, f(R) theories, and coupled DE. In addition to the latest Planck data, for our main analyses, we use background constraints from baryonic acoustic oscillations, type-Ia supernovae, and local measurements of the Hubble constant. We further show the impact of measurements of the cosmological perturbations, such as redshift-space distortions and weak gravitational lensing. These additional probes are important tools for testing MG models and for breaking degeneracies that are still present in the combination of Planck and background data sets. All results that include only background parameterizations (expansion of the equation of state, early DE, general potentials in minimally-coupled scalar fields or principal component analysis) are in agreement with ACDM. When testing models that also change perturbations (even when the background is fixed to ACDM), some tensions appear in a few scenarios: the maximum one found is similar to 2 sigma for Planck TT + lowP when parameterizing observables related to the gravitational potentials with a chosen time dependence; the tension increases to, at most, 3 sigma when external data sets are included. It however disappears when including CMB lensing.
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| 8. |
- Ade, P. A. R., et al.
(författare)
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Planck 2015 results XIX. Constraints on primordial magnetic fields
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 594
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We compute and investigate four types of imprint of a stochastic background of primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies: the impact of PMFs on the CMB temperature and polarization spectra, which is related to their contribution to cosmological perturbations; the effect on CMB polarization induced by Faraday rotation; the impact of PMFs on the ionization history; magnetically-induced non-Gaussianities and related non-zero bispectra; and the magnetically-induced breaking of statistical isotropy. We present constraints on the amplitude of PMFs that are derived from different Planck data products, depending on the specific effect that is being analysed. Overall, Planck data constrain the amplitude of PMFs to less than a few nanoGauss, with different bounds that depend on the considered model. In particular, individual limits coming from the analysis of the CMB angular power spectra, using the Planck likelihood, are B-1 (Mpc) < 4.4 nG (where B1 Mpc is the comoving field amplitude at a scale of 1 Mpc) at 95% confidence level, assuming zero helicity. By considering the Planck likelihood, based only on parity-even angular power spectra, we obtain B-1 (Mpc) < 5.6 nG for a maximally helical field. For nearly scale-invariant PMFs we obtain B-1 (Mpc) < 2.0 nG and B-1 (Mpc) < 0.9 nG if the impact of PMFs on the ionization history of the Universe is included in the analysis. From the analysis of magnetically-induced non-Gaussianity, we obtain three different values, corresponding to three applied methods, all below 5 nG. The constraint from the magnetically-induced passive-tensor bispectrum is B-1 (Mpc) < 2.8 nG. A search for preferred directions in the magnetically-induced passive bispectrum yields B-1 (Mpc) < 4.5 nG, whereas the compensated-scalar bispectrum gives B-1 (Mpc) < 3 nG. The analysis of the Faraday rotation of CMB polarization by PMFs uses the Planck power spectra in EE and BB at 70 GHz and gives B-1 (Mpc) < 1380 nG. In our final analysis, we consider the harmonic-space correlations produced by Alfven waves, finding no significant evidence for the presence of these waves. Together, these results comprise a comprehensive set of constraints on possible PMFs with Planck data.
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| 9. |
- Ade, P. A. R., et al.
(författare)
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Planck 2015 results XV. Gravitational lensing
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 594
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the most significant measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential to date (at a level of 40 sigma), using temperature and polarization data from the Planck 2015 full-mission release. Using a polarization-only estimator, we detect lensing at a significance of 5 sigma. We cross-check the accuracy of our measurement using the wide frequency coverage and complementarity of the temperature and polarization measurements. Public products based on this measurement include an estimate of the lensing potential over approximately 70% of the sky, an estimate of the lensing potential power spectrum in bandpowers for the multipole range 40 <= L <= 400, and an associated likelihood for cosmological parameter constraints. We find good agreement between our measurement of the lensing potential power spectrum and that found in the Lambda CDM model that best fits the Planck temperature and polarization power spectra. Using the lensing likelihood alone we obtain a percent-level measurement of the parameter combination sigma(8) Omega(0.25)(m) = 0.591 +/- 0.021. We combine our determination of the lensing potential with the E-mode polarization, also measured by Planck, to generate an estimate of the lensing B-mode. We show that this lensing B-mode estimate is correlated with the B-modes observed directly by Planck at the expected level and with a statistical significance of 10 sigma, confirming Planck's sensitivity to this known sky signal. We also correlate our lensing potential estimate with the large-scale temperature anisotropies, detecting a cross-correlation at the 3 sigma level, as expected because of dark energy in the concordance Lambda CDM model.
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| 10. |
- Ade, P. A. R., et al.
(författare)
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Planck 2015 results XVII. Constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 594
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Planck full mission cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and E-mode polarization maps are analysed to obtain constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). Using three classes of optimal bispectrum estimators - separable template-fitting (KSW), binned, and modal we obtain consistent values for the primordial local, equilateral, and orthogonal bispectrum amplitudes, quoting as our final result from temperature alone f(NL)(local) = 2.5 +/- 5.7, f(NL)(equil) = 16 +/- 70, and f(NL)(ortho) = 34 +/- 33 (68% CL, statistical). Combining temperature and polarization data we obtain f(NL)(local) = 0.8 +/- 5.0, f(NL)(equil) = 4 +/- 43, and f(NL)(ortho) = 26 +/- 21 (68% CL, statistical). The results are based on comprehensive cross-validation of these estimators on Gaussian and non-Gaussian simulations, are stable across component separation techniques, pass an extensive suite of tests, and are consistent with estimators based on measuring the Minkowski functionals of the CMB. The effect of time-domain de-glitching systematics on the bispectrum is negligible. In spite of these test outcomes we conservatively label the results including polarization data as preliminary, owing to a known mismatch of the noise model in simulations and the data. Beyond estimates of individual shape amplitudes, we present model-independent, three-dimensional reconstructions of the Planck CMB bispectrum and derive constraints on early universe scenarios that generate primordial NG, including general single-field models of inflation, axion inflation, initial state modifications, models producing parity-violating tensor bispectra, and directionally dependent vector models. We present a wide survey of scale-dependent feature and resonance models, accounting for the look elsewhere effect in estimating the statistical significance of features. We also look for isocurvature NG, and find no signal, but we obtain constraints that improve significantly with the inclusion of polarization. The primordial trispectrum amplitude in the local model is constrained to be g(NL)(local) = (9.0 +/- 7.7) x 10(4) (68% CL statistical), and we perform an analysis of trispectrum shapes beyond the local case. The global picture that emerges is one of consistency with the premises of the Lambda CDM cosmology, namely that the structure we observe today was sourced by adiabatic, passive, Gaussian, and primordial seed perturbations.
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