Gravitational wave bursts from cosmic (super)strings: Quantitative analysis and constraints
- Center for Gravitation and Cosmology, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Wisconsin, 53201 (United States)
- CERCA, Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7079 (United States)
We discuss data analysis techniques that can be used in the search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic strings. When data from multiple interferometers are available, we describe consistency checks that can be used to greatly reduce the false alarm rates. We construct an expression for the rate of bursts for arbitrary cosmic string loop distributions and apply it to simple known solutions. The cosmology is solved exactly and includes the effects of a late-time acceleration. We find substantially lower burst rates than previous estimates suggest and explain the disagreement. Initial LIGO is unlikely to detect field-theoretic cosmic strings with the usual loop sizes, though it may detect cosmic superstrings as well as cosmic strings and superstrings with nonstandard loop sizes (which may be more realistic). In the absence of a detection, we show how to set upper limits based on the loudest event. Using Initial LIGO sensitivity curves, we show that these upper limits may result in interesting constraints on the parameter space of theories that lead to the production of cosmic strings.
- OSTI ID:
- 20774725
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 73, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.73.105001; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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