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Astronomers poised to hunt new kind of gravitational wave - Space.com

Astronomers poised to hunt new kind of gravitational wave - Space.com

Astronomers poised to hunt new kind of gravitational wave - Space.com
Feb 06, 2023 1 min, 0 secs

Astronomers are getting closer to finding sources of continuous gravitational waves, thanks to observations of Scorpius X-2, a neutron star accreting matter from a low-mass binary companion.

However, non-merging compact objects can in theory produce a nonstop torrent of gravitational waves, albeit weaker than those emitted by mergers.

So astronomers turned to observations from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ( LIGO) in the U.S. and its European and Japanese counterparts Virgo and KAGRA.

Analyzing data from the system's third observing run, which ran from April 2019 to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, scientists were unable to detect continuous gravitational wave emission from Scorpius X-2.

"For the first time, this search is now sensitive to models of the possible torque balance scenario of the system, which states that the torques of the gravitational waves and accretion of matter onto the neutron star are in balance," Jared Wofford, a Ph.D. candidate at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"In the coming years, we expect better sensitivities from more data taken by Advanced LIGO observing runs probing deeper into the torque balance scenario in hopes to make the first continuous wave detection."

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