Abstract

Thispaper reports on an all-sky search for periodic gravitational wavesfrom sources such as deformed isolated rapidly spinning neutron stars.The analysis uses 840 hours of data from 66 days of thefifth LIGO science run (S5). The data were searched forquasimonochromatic waves with frequencies f in the range from 50to 1500 Hz, with a linear frequency drift f-dot (measured atthe solar system barycenter) in the range -f/tau<f-dot <0.1f/tau, for aminimum spin-down age tau of 1000 years for signals below 400 Hzand 8000 years above 400 Hz. The main computational work of thesearch was distributed over approximately 100 000 computers volunteered by the generalpublic. This large computing power allowed the use of arelatively long coherent integration time of 30 hours while searching alarge parameter space. This search extends Einstein@Home's previous search inLIGO S4 data to about 3 times better sensitivity. No statisticallysignificant signals were found. In the 125–225 Hz band, more than90% of sources with dimensionless gravitational-wave strain tensor amplitude greaterthan 3×10-24 would have been detected.