Abstract

Wepresent the results obtained from an all-sky search for gravitational-wave(GW) bursts in the 64–2000 Hz frequency range in data collectedby the LIGO detectors during the first year (November 2005—November2006) of their fifth science run. The total analyzed livetime was 268.6 days. Multiple hierarchical data analysis methods wereinvoked in this search. The overall sensitivity expressed in termsof the root-sum-square (rss) strain amplitude hrss for gravitational-wave burstswith various morphologies was in the range of 6×10-22 Hz-1/2 toa few×10-21 Hz-1/2. No GW signals were observed and a frequentistupper limit of 3.75 events per year on the rateof strong GW bursts was placed at the 90% confidencelevel. As in our previous searches, we also combined thisrate limit with the detection efficiency for selected waveform morphologiesto obtain event rate versus strength exclusion curves. In sensitivity,these exclusion curves are the most stringent to date.