Search for Gravitational Waves from a Nearby Neutron Star Using Barycentric Resampling

Citation

Patel, Pinkesh Kiritbhai (2011) Search for Gravitational Waves from a Nearby Neutron Star Using Barycentric Resampling. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/00AG-ZF69. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:09142010-170958877

Abstract

Rapidly spinning neutron stars in our Galactic neighborhood are promising sources of quasi-monochromatic continuous gravitational waves observable by the current LIGO detectors. I describe a search done on the LIGO S5 data, looking for an isolated neutron star hypothesized to be at a distance of about 100 parsecs. This kind of search is computationally bound and is made possible by the implementation of barycentric resampling, which is described here as well. I also describe the work done at the Hanford LIGO site, while taking data for the Astrowatch program.

Thesis Files