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

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>We present a search for quasi-monochromatic 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 t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mavalvala, Nergis (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Astronomical Society, 2022-04-28T12:25:45Z.
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100 1 0 |a Mavalvala, Nergis  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Diving below the Spin-down Limit: Constraints on Gravitational Waves from the Energetic Young Pulsar PSR J0537-6910 
260 |b American Astronomical Society,   |c 2022-04-28T12:25:45Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142162 
520 |a <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>We present a search for quasi-monochromatic 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 Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (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 exhibits fRequent and strong glitches. Analyses of its long-term and interglitch braking indices provide 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 the LIGO/Virgo detectors. Motivated by these considerations, we search for gravitational-wave emission at both once and twice the rotation frequency from PSR J0537−6910. We find no signal, however, and report 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 2 and limit gravitational waves from the <jats:italic>l</jats:italic> = <jats:italic>m</jats:italic> = 2 mode to account for less than 14% of the spin-down energy budget. The fiducial equatorial ellipticity is constrained to less than about 3 ×10<jats:sup>−5</jats:sup>, which is the third best constraint for any young pulsar.</jats:p> 
546 |a en 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t 10.3847/2041-8213/ABFFCD 
773 |t The Astrophysical Journal Letters