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Understanding the noise in gravitational-wave detectors is central to detecting and interpreting gravitational-wave signals. Glitches are transient, non-Gaussian noise features that can have a range of environmental and instrumental origins. The Gravity Spy project uses a machine-learning algorithm to classify glitches based upon their time–frequency morphology. The resulting set of classified glitches can be used as input to detector-characterisation investigations of how to mitigate glitches, or data-analysis studies of how to ameliorate the impact of glitches. Here we present the results of the Gravity Spy analysis of data up to the end of the third observing run of advanced laser interferometric gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO). We classify 233981 glitches from LIGO Hanford and 379805 glitches from LIGO Livingston into morphological classes. We find that the distribution of glitches differs between the two LIGO sites. This highlights the potential need for studies of data quality to be individually tailored to each gravitational-wave observatory.

 

Abstract We search for signatures of gravitational lensing in the gravitational-wave signals from compact binary coalescences detected by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Advanced Virgo during O3a, the first half of their third observing run. We study: (1) the expected rate of lensing at current detector sensitivity and the implications of a non-observation of strong lensing or a stochastic gravitational-wave background on the merger-rate density at high redshift; (2) how the interpretation of individual high-mass events would change if they were found to be lensed; (3) the possibility of multiple images due to strong lensing by galaxies or galaxy clusters; and (4) possible wave-optics effects due to point-mass microlenses. Several pairs of signals in the multiple-image analysis show similar parameters and, in this sense, are nominally consistent with the strong lensing hypothesis. However, taking into account population priors, selection effects, and the prior odds against lensing, these events do not provide sufficient evidence for lensing. Overall, we find no compelling evidence for lensing in the observed gravitational-wave signals from any of these analyses. 

Abstract We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave emission due to r-modes in the pulsar PSR J0537–6910 using data from the LIGO–Virgo Collaboration observing run O3. PSR J0537–6910 is a young energetic X-ray pulsar and is the most frequent glitcher known. The inter-glitch braking index of the pulsar suggests that gravitational-wave emission due to r-mode oscillations may play an important role in the spin evolution of this pulsar. Theoretical models confirm this possibility and predict emission at a level that can be probed by ground-based detectors. In order to explore this scenario, we search for r-mode emission in the epochs between glitches by using a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained from NICER data. We do not detect any signals in the theoretically expected band of 86–97 Hz, and report upper limits on the amplitude of the gravitational waves. Our results improve on previous amplitude upper limits from r-modes in J0537-6910 by a factor of up to 3 and place stringent constraints on theoretical models for r-mode-driven spin-down in PSR J0537–6910, especially for higher frequencies at which our results reach below the spin-down limit defined by energy conservation.