Constraints on cosmic strings using data from the first Advanced LIGO observing run

Abbott,; and Abbott, B. P.; and Abbott, R.; and Acernese, T. D.; and Ackley, F.; and Adams, K.; and Adams, C.; and Addesso, T.; and Adhikari, P.; and Adya, R. X.; and Affeldt, V. B.; and Afrough, C.; and Agarwal, M.; and Agathos, B.; and Agatsuma, M.; and Aggarwal, K.; and Aguiar, N.; and Aiello, O. D.; and Ain, L.; and Ajith, A.; and Allen, P.; and Allen, B.; and Allocca, G.; and Altin, A.; and Amato, P. A.; and Ananyeva, A.; and Anderson, A.; and Anderson, S. B.; and Antier, W. G.; and Appert, S.; and Arai, S.; and Araya, K.; and Areeda, M. C.; and Arnaud, J. S.; and Arun, N.; and Ascenzi, K. G.; and Ashton, S.; and Ast, G.; and Aston, M.; and Astone, S. M.; and Aufmuth, P.; and Aulbert, P.; and AultONeal, C.; and Avila-Alvarez, K.; and Babak, A.; and Bacon, S.; and Bader, P.; and Bae, M. K. M.; and Baker, S.; and Baldaccini, P. T.; and Ballardin, F.; and Ballmer, G.; and Banagiri, S. W.; and Barayoga, S.; and Barclay, J. C.; and Barish, S. E.; and Barker, B. C.; and Barone, D.; and Barr, F.; and Barsotti, B.; and Barsuglia, L.; and Barta, M.; and Bartlett, D.; and Bartos, J.; and Bassiri, I.; and Basti, R.; and Batch, A.; and Baune, J. C.; and Bawaj, C.; and Bazzan, M.; and Becsy, M.; and Beer, B.; and Bejger, C.; and Belahcene, M.; and Bell, I.; and Berger, A. S.; and Bergmann, B. K.; and Berry, G.; and Bersanetti, C. P. L.; and Bertolini, D.; and Betzwieser, A.; and Bhagwat, J.; and Bhandare, S.; and Bilenko, R.; and Billingsley, I. A.; and Billman, G.; and Birch, C. R.; and Birney, J.; and Birnholtz, R.; and Biscans, O.; and Bisht, S.; and Bitossi, A.; and Biwer, M.; and Bizouard, C.; and Blackburn, M. A.; and Blackman, J. K.; and Blair, J.; and Blair, C. D.; and Blair, D. G.; and Bloemen, R. M.; and Bock, S.; and Bode, O.; and Boer, N.; and Bogaert, M.; and Bohe, G.; and Bondu, A.; and Bonnand, F.; and Boom, R.; and Bork, B. A.; and Boschi, R.; and Bose, V.; and Bouffanais, S.; and Bozzi, Y.; and Bradaschia, A.; and Brady, C.; and Braginsky, P. R.; and Branchesi, V. B.; and Brau, M.; and Briant, J. E.; and Brillet, T.; and Brinkmann, A.; and Brisson, M.; and Brockill, V.; and Broida, P.; and Brooks, J. E.; and Brown, A. F.; and Brown, D. A.; and Brown, D. D.; and Brunett, N. M.; and Buchanan, S.; and Buikema, C. C.; and Bulik, A.; and Bulten, T.; and Buonanno, H. J.; and Buskulic, A.; and Buy, D.; and Byer, C.; and Cabero, R. L.; and Cadonati, M.; and Cagnoli, L.; and Cahillane, G.; and Bustillo, C.; Calderon and Callister, J.; and Calloni, T. A.; and Camp, E.; and Canepa, J. B.; and Canizares, M.; and Cannon, P.; and Cao, K. C.; and Cao, H.; and Capano, J.; and Capocasa, C. D.; and Carbognani, E.; and Caride, F.; and Carney, S.; and Diaz, M. F.; Casanueva and Casentini, J.; and Caudill, C.; and Cavaglia, S.; and Cavalier, M.; and Cavalieri, F.; and Cella, R.; and Cepeda, G.; and Baiardi, C. 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doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.97.102002

Cosmic strings are topological defects which can be formed in grand unified theory scale phase transitions in the early universe. They are also predicted to form in the context of string theory. The main mechanism for a network of Nambu-Goto cosmic strings to lose energy is through the production of loops and the subsequent emission of gravitational waves, thus offering an experimental signature for the existence of cosmic strings. Here we report on the analysis conducted to specifically search for gravitational-wave bursts from cosmic string loops in the data of Advanced LIGO 2015-2016 observing run (O1). No evidence of such signals was found in the data, and as a result we set upper limits on the cosmic string parameters for three recent loop distribution models. In this paper, we initially derive constraints on the string tension G mu and the intercommutation probability, using not only the burst analysis performed on the O1 data set but also results from the previously published LIGO stochastic O1 analysis, pulsar timing arrays, cosmic microwave background and big-bang nucleosynthesis experiments. We show that these data sets are complementary in that they probe gravitational waves produced by cosmic string loops during very different epochs. Finally, we show that the data sets exclude large parts of the parameter space of the three loop distribution models we consider.