Diving below the Spin-down Limit: Constraints on Gravitational Waves from theEnergetic Young Pulsar PSR J0537-6910

We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave signals from the young, energetic X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the second and third observing runs of LIGO and Virgo. The search is enabled by a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained using NICER data. The NICER ephemeris has al...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2021, Vol.913 (2)
Main Authors: Abbott, R., Abbott, T.D., Abraham, S., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adams, A., Adams, C., Adhikari, R.X., Adya, V.B., Affeldt, C., Agarwal, D., Agathos, M., Agatsuma, K., Aggarwal, N., Aguiar, O.D., Aiello, L., Ain, A., Ajith, P., Akutsu, T., Aleman, K.M., Allen, G., Allocca, A., Altin, P.A., Amato, A., Anand, S., Ananyeva, A., Anderson, S.B., Anderson, W.G., Ando, M., Angelova, S.V., Ansoldi, S., Antelis, J.M., Antier, S., Appert, S., Arai, Koya, Arai, Koji, Arai, Y., Araki, S., Araya, A., Araya, M.C., Areeda, J.S., Arène, M., Aritomi, N., Arnaud, N., Aronson, S.M., Arun, K.G., Asada, H., Asali, Y., Ashton, G., Aso, Y., Aston, S.M., Astone, P., Aubin, F., Aufmuth, P., Aultoneal, K., Austin, C., Babak, S., Badaracco, F., Bader, M.K.M., Bae, S., Bae, Y., Baer, A.M., Bagnasco, S., Bai, Y., Baiotti, L., Baird, J., Bajpai, R., Ball, M., Ballardin, G., Ballmer, S.W., Bals, M., Balsamo, A., Baltus, G., Banagiri, S., Bankar, D., Bankar, R.S., Barayoga, J.C., Barbieri, C., Barish, B.C., Barker, D., Barneo, P., Barnum, S., Barone, F., Barr, B., Barsotti, L., Barsuglia, M., Barta, D., Bartlett, J., Barton, M.A., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Basti, A., Bawaj, M., Bayley, J.C., Baylor, A.C., Bazzan, M., Bécsy, B., Bedakihale, V.M., Bejger, M., Belahcene, I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Physics
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Summary:We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave signals from the young, energetic X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the second and third observing runs of LIGO and Virgo. The search is enabled by a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained using NICER data. The NICER ephemeris has also been extended through 2020 October and includes three new glitches. PSR J0537-6910 has the largest spin-down luminosity of any pulsar and is highly active with regards to glitches. Analyses of its long-term and inter-glitch braking indices provided intriguing evidence that its spin-down energy budget may include gravitational-wave emission from a time-varying mass quadrupole moment. Its 62 Hz rotation frequency also puts its possible gravitational-wave emission in the most sensitive band of LIGO/Virgo detectors. Motivated by these considerations, we search for gravitational-wave emission at both once and twice the rotation frequency. We find no signal, however, and report our upper limits. Assuming a rigidly rotating triaxial star, our constraints reach below the gravitational-wave spin-down limit for this star for the first time by more than a factor of two and limit gravitational waves from the $l=m=2$ mode to account for less than 14% of the spin-down energy budget. The fiducial equatorial ellipticity is limited to less than about 3e-5, which is the third best constraint for any young pulsar.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/2041-8213/abffcd