422 research outputs found
Studying the coincidence excess between EXPLORER and NAUTILUS during 1998
The coincidences between EXPLORER and NAUTILUS during 1998 (Astone et al.
2001) are more deeply studied. It is found that the coincidence excess is
greater in the ten-day period 7-17 September 1998 and it occurs at the sidereal
hour 4, when the detectors axes are perpendicular to the Galactic Disk. The
purpose of this paper is to bring our results with the GW detectors to the
attention of scientists working in the astrophysical field, and ask them
whether are they aware of any special phenomenon occurring when EXPLORER and
NAUTILUS showed a coincidence excess.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, submitted to A &
MiniGRAIL progress report 2004
The MiniGRAIL detector was improved. The sphere was replaced by a slightly larger one, having a diameter of 68 cm (instead of 65 cm), reducing the resonant frequency by about 200 Hz to around 2.9 kHz. The last four masses of the attenuation system were machined to increase their resonant frequency and improve the attenuation around the resonant frequency of the sphere. In the new sphere, six holes were machined on the TIGA positions for easy mounting of the transducers. During the last cryogenic run, two capacitive transducers and a calibrator were mounted on the sphere. The first transducer was coupled to a double-stage SQUID amplifier having a commercial quantum design SQUID as a first stage and a DROS as a second stage. The second transducer was read by a single-stage quantum design SQUID. During the cryogenic run, the sphere was cooled down to 4 K. The two-stage SQUID had a flux noise of about 1.6 ÎŒ0 Hzâ1/2. The detector was calibrated and the sensitivity curve of MiniGRAIL was determined
Quark nuggets search using 2350 Kg gravitational waves aluminum bar detectors
The gravitational wave resonant detectors can be used as detectors of quark
nuggets, like nuclearites (nuclear matter with a strange quark). This search
has been carried out using data from two 2350 Kg, 2 K cooled, aluminum bar
detectors: NAUTILUS, located in Frascati (Italy), and EXPLORER, that was
located in CERN Geneva (CH). Both antennas are equipped with cosmic ray shower
detectors: signals in the bar due to showers are continuously detected and used
to characterize the antenna performances. The bar excitation mechanism is based
on the so called thermo-acoustic effect, studied on dedicated experiments that
use particle beams. This mechanism predicts that vibrations of bars are induced
by the heat deposited in the bar from the particle. The geometrical acceptance
of the bar detectors is 19.5 sr, that is smaller than that of other
detectors used for similar searches. However, the detection mechanism is
completely different and is more straightforward than in other detectors. We
will show the results of ten years of data from NAUTILUS (2003-2012) and 7
years from EXPLORER (2003-2009). The experimental limits we obtain are of
interest because, for nuclearites of mass less than grams, we find a
flux smaller than that one predicted considering nuclearites as dark matter
candidates.Comment: presented to the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference Rio de
Janeiro 201
Analysis of 3 years of data from the gravitational wave detectors EXPLORER and NAUTILUS
We performed a search for short gravitational wave bursts using about 3 years
of data of the resonant bar detectors Nautilus and Explorer. Two types of
analysis were performed: a search for coincidences with a low background of
accidentals (0.1 over the entire period), and the calculation of upper limits
on the rate of gravitational wave bursts. Here we give a detailed account of
the methodology and we report the results: a null search for coincident events
and an upper limit that improves over all previous limits from resonant
antennas, and is competitive, in the range h_rss ~1E-19, with limits from
interferometric detectors. Some new methodological features are introduced that
have proven successful in the upper limits evaluation.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
On the crosscorrelation between Gravitational Wave Detectors for detecting association with Gamma Ray Bursts
Crosscorrelation of the outputs of two Gravitational Wave (GW) detectors has
recently been proposed [1] as a method for detecting statistical association
between GWs and Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Unfortunately, the method can be
effectively used only in the case of stationary noise. In this work a different
crosscorrelation algorithm is presented, which may effectively be applied also
in non-stationary conditions for the cumulative analysis of a large number of
GRBs. The value of the crosscorrelation at zero delay, which is the only one
expected to be correlated to any astrophysical signal, is compared with the
distribution of crosscorrelation of the same data for all non-zero delays
within the integration time interval. This background distribution is gaussian,
so the statistical significance of an experimentally observed excess would be
well-defined.
Computer simulations using real noise data of the cryogenic GW detectors
Explorer and Nautilus with superimposed delta-like signals were performed, to
test the effectiveness of the method, and theoretical estimates of its
sensitivity compared to the results of the simulation. The effectiveness of the
proposed algorithm is compared to that of other cumulative techniques, finding
that the algorithm is particularly effective in the case of non-gaussian noise
and of a large (100-1000s) and unpredictable delay between GWs and GRBs.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Submitted by Phys. Rev.
Effect of cosmic rays on the resonant gravitational wave detector NAUTILUS at temperature T=1.5 K
The interaction between cosmic rays and the gravitational wave bar detector
NAUTILUS is experimentally studied with the aluminum bar at temperature of
T=1.5 K. The results are compared with those obtained in the previous runs when
the bar was at T=0.14 K. The results of the run at T = 1.5 K are in agreement
with the thermo-acoustic model; no large signals at unexpected rate are
noticed, unlike the data taken in the run at T = 0.14 K. The observations
suggest a larger efficiency in the mechanism of conversion of the particle
energy into vibrational mode energy when the aluminum bar is in the
superconductive status.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted by Physics Letters
All-sky upper limit for gravitational radiation from spinning neutron stars
We present results of the all-sky search for gravitational-wave signals from
spinning neutron stars in the data of the EXPLORER resonant bar detector. Our
data analysis technique was based on the maximum likelihood detection method.
We briefly describe the theoretical methods that we used in our search. The
main result of our analysis is an upper limit of for
the dimensionless amplitude of the continuous gravitational-wave signals coming
from any direction in the sky and in the narrow frequency band from 921.00 Hz
to 921.76 Hz.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceedings of 7th Gravitational
Wave Data Analysis Workshop, December 17-19, 2002, Kyoto, Japa
Increasing the bandwidth of resonant gravitational antennas: The case of Explorer
Resonant gravitational wave detectors with an observation bandwidth of tens
of hertz are a reality: the antenna Explorer, operated at CERN by the ROG
collaboration, has been upgraded with a new read-out. In this new
configuration, it exhibits an unprecedented useful bandwidth: in over 55 Hz
about its frequency of operation of 919 Hz the spectral sensitivity is better
than 10^{-20} /sqrt(Hz) . We describe the detector and its sensitivity and
discuss the foreseable upgrades to even larger bandwidths.Comment: 4 pages- 4 figures Acceted for publication on Physical Review Letter
Study of the coincidences between the gravitational wave detectors EXPLORER and NAUTILUS in 2001
We report the result from a search for bursts of gravitational waves using
data collected by the cryogenic resonant detectors EXPLORER and NAUTILUS during
the year 2001, for a total measuring time of 90 days. With these data we
repeated the coincidence search performed on the 1998 data (which showed a
small coincidence excess) applying data analysis algorithms based on known
physical characteristics of the detectors. With the 2001 data a new interesting
coincidence excess is found when the detectors are favorably oriented with
respect to the Galactic Disk
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