Publication
Title
Upper limits on the isotropic gravitational-wave background from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's third observing run
Author
Institution/Organisation
LIGO Sci Collaboration
Virgo Collaboration
KAGRA Collaboration
Abstract
We report results of a search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background (GWB) using data from Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run (O3) combined with upper limits from the earlier O1 and O2 runs. Unlike in previous observing runs in the advanced detector era, we include Virgo in the search for the GWB. The results of the search are consistent with uncorrelated noise, and therefore we place upper limits on the strength of the GWB. We find that the dimensionless energy density Omega(GW) <= 5.8 x 10(-9) at the 95% credible level for a flat (frequency-independent) GWB, using a prior which is uniform in the log of the strength of the GWB, with 99% of the sensitivity coming from the band 20-76.6 Hz; Omega(GW)(f) <= 3.4 x 10(-9) at 25 Hz for a power-law GWB with a spectral index of 2/3 (consistent with expectations for compact binary coalescences), in the band 20-90.6 Hz; and Omega(GW)(f) <= 3.9 x 10(-10) at 25 Hz for a spectral index of 3, in the band 20-291.6 Hz. These upper limits improve over our previous results by a factor of 6.0 for a flat GWB, 8.8 for a spectral index of 2/3, and 13.1 for a spectral index of 3. We also search for a GWB arising from scalar and vector modes, which are predicted by alternative theories of gravity; we do not find evidence of these, and place upper limits on the strength of GWBs with these polarizations. We demonstrate that there is no evidence of correlated noise of magnetic origin by performing a Bayesian analysis that allows for the presence of both a GWB and an effective magnetic background arising from geophysical Schumann resonances. We compare our upper limits to a fiducial model for the GWB from the merger of compact binaries, updating the model to use the most recent data-driven population inference from the systems detected during O3a. Finally, we combine our results with observations of individual mergers and show that, at design sensitivity, this joint approach may yield stronger constraints on the merger rate of binary black holes at z greater than or similar to 2 than can be achieved with individually resolved mergers alone.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Physical review D / American Physical Society. - Ridge, N.Y., 2016, currens
Publication
Ridge, N.Y. : American Physical Society , 2021
ISSN
2470-0029
DOI
10.1103/PHYSREVD.104.022004
Volume/pages
104 :2 (2021) , 27 p.
Article Reference
022004
ISI
000677556000001
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Unlocking the Dark Universe with Gravitational Wave Observations: from QuantumOptics to Quantum Gravity.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 30.08.2021
Last edited 04.03.2025
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