2014/10/31 by The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, The Virgo Collaboration, J. Aasi +867 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #gr-qc #astro-ph.IM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/32/11/115012
31 pages, 13 figures
arxiv created 2014/11/18 · arxiv updated 2015/08/06
In 2009-2010, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observa- tory (LIGO) operated together with international partners Virgo and GEO600 as a network to search for gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. The sensitiv- ity of these detectors was limited by a combination of noise sources inherent to the instrumental design and its environment, often localized in time or frequency, that couple into the gravitational-wave readout. Here we review the performance of the LIGO instruments during this epoch, the work done to characterize the de- tectors and their data, and the effect that transient and continuous noise artefacts have on the sensitivity of LIGO to a variety of astrophysical sources.