A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

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.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

Setting up and time-resolution measurement of a radio-frequency-based streak camera

We have experimented with a radio-frequency-based streak camera. The basic idea behind the method consists of magnetic deflection of the electron beam imparted by a radio-frequency cavity. All the components of the camera were tested and the time resolution was measured to lie within the sub-ps domain. Further advantages of the method are simplification of triggering, weaker dependence on space-charge effect within the electron beam, high modularity, and ease of implementation

Performace of a radio-frequency-based strak camera

We have experimented with a streak camera based on radio-frequency detection of the electron beam. The time-resolution was measured to lie in the sub-ps domain. The method allowed considerable simplification of triggering, weaker dependence on space-charge within the electron beam, high modularity, and ease of implementation. We discuss experimental results and future prospects

The status of Virgo

International audienceAfter almost 4 years of commissioning Virgo has started its first long science run. The recent commissioning and data analysis activities are summarized here

First joint Gravitational Waves search by the AURIGA-EXPLORER-NAUTILUS-Virgo collaboration

We present results of the search for coincident burst excitations over a 24 hours long data set collected by AURIGA, EXPLORER, NAUTILUS and Virgo detectors during September 2005. The search of candidate triggers was performed independently on each of the data sets from single detectors. We looked for two-fold time coincidences between these candidates using an algorithm optimized for a given population of sources and we calculated the efficiency of detection through injections of templated signal waveforms into the streams of data. To this purpose we have considered the case of signals shaped as damped sinusoids coming from the galactic center direction. In this framework our method targets an optimal balance between high efficiency and low false alarm rate, aiming at setting confidence intervals as stringent as possible in terms of the rate of the selected source models.We present results of the search for coincident burst excitations over a 24 hours long data set collected by AURIGA, EXPLORER, NAUTILUS and Virgo detectors during September 2005. The search of candidate triggers was performed independently on each of the data sets from single detectors. We looked for two-fold time coincidences between these candidates using an algorithm optimized for a given population of sources and we calculated the efficiency of detection through injections of templated signal waveforms into the streams of data. To this purpose we have considered the case of signals shaped as damped sinusoids coming from the galactic center direction. In this framework our method targets an optimal balance between high efficiency and low false alarm rate, aiming at setting confidence intervals as stringent as possible in terms of the rate of the selected source models