Search for gravitational waves associated with the August 2006 timing glitch of the Vela pulsar

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Abstract

The physical mechanisms responsible for pulsar timing glitches are thought to excite quasinormal mode oscillations in their parent neutron star that couple to gravitational-wave emission. In August 2006, a timing glitch was observed in the radio emission of PSR B0833-45, the Vela pulsar. At the time of the glitch, the two colocated Hanford gravitational-wave detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) were operational and taking data as part of the fifth LIGO science run (S5). We present the first direct search for the gravitational-wave emission associated with oscillations of the fundamental quadrupole mode excited by a pulsar timing glitch. No gravitational-wave detection candidate was found. We place Bayesian 90% confidence upper limits of $6.3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}21}$ to $1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}20}$ on the peak intrinsic strain amplitude of gravitational-wave ring-down signals, depending on which spherical harmonic mode is excited. The corresponding range of energy upper limits is $5.0\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{44}$ to $1.3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{45}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{erg}$.

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