B. P. Abbott, California Institute of Technology
R. Abbott, California Institute of Technology
T. D. Abbott, Louisiana State University
F. Acernese, Università degli Studi di Salerno
K. Ackley, University of Florida
C. Adams, LIGO Livingston
T. Adams, Université Savoie Mont Blanc
P. Addesso, Università degli Studi del Sannio
R. X. Adhikari, California Institute of Technology
V. B. Adya, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
C. Affeldt, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
M. Afrough, University of Mississippi
B. Agarwal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
M. Agathos, University of Cambridge
K. Agatsuma, FOM-Institute of Subatomic Physics - NIKHEF
N. Aggarwal, LIGO, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
O. D. Aguiar, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais
L. Aiello, Gran Sasso Science Institute
A. Ain, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics India
P. Ajith, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
B. Allen, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
G. Allen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
A. Allocca, Università di Pisa
P. A. Altin, The Australian National University
A. Amato, IN2P3 Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules
A. Ananyeva, California Institute of Technology
S. B. Anderson, California Institute of Technology
W. G. Anderson, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
S. Antier, Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire
S. Appert, California Institute of Technology
K. Arai, California Institute of Technology
M. C. Araya, California Institute of Technology
J. S. Areeda, California State University, Fullerton

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-15-2018

Abstract

Cosmic strings are topological defects which can be formed in grand unified theory scale phase transitions in the early universe. They are also predicted to form in the context of string theory. The main mechanism for a network of Nambu-Goto cosmic strings to lose energy is through the production of loops and the subsequent emission of gravitational waves, thus offering an experimental signature for the existence of cosmic strings. Here we report on the analysis conducted to specifically search for gravitational-wave bursts from cosmic string loops in the data of Advanced LIGO 2015-2016 observing run (O1). No evidence of such signals was found in the data, and as a result we set upper limits on the cosmic string parameters for three recent loop distribution models. In this paper, we initially derive constraints on the string tension Gμ and the intercommutation probability, using not only the burst analysis performed on the O1 data set but also results from the previously published LIGO stochastic O1 analysis, pulsar timing arrays, cosmic microwave background and big-bang nucleosynthesis experiments. We show that these data sets are complementary in that they probe gravitational waves produced by cosmic string loops during very different epochs. Finally, we show that the data sets exclude large parts of the parameter space of the three loop distribution models we consider.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Physical Review D

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