First all-sky upper limits from LIGO on the strength of periodic gravitational waves using the Hough transform

We perform a wide parameter space search for continuous gravitational waves over the whole sky and over a large range of values of the frequency and the first spin-down parameter. Our search method is based on the Hough transform, which is a semi-coherent, computationally efficient, and robust pattern recognition technique. We apply this technique to data from the second science run of the LIGO detectors and our final results are all-sky upper limits on the strength of gravitational waves emitted by unknown isolated spinning neutron stars on a set of narrow frequency bands in the range 200-

400

Hz. The best upper limit on the gravitational wave strain amplitude that we obtain in this frequency range is

4.43\times 10^{-23}

.

Note:

22 pages, 21 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. D Report-no: LIGO-P050013-03-R

07.05.Kf
95.55.Ym
97.60.Gb
04.80.Nn
gravitational radiation: time dependence
gravitational radiation: particle source
neutron star: rotator
upper limit
data analysis method
LIGO

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