Targeted Search for Gravitational Waves from Highly Spinning Light Compact Binaries

Searches for gravitational waves from compact-binary mergers, which to datehave reported $\sim100$ observations, have previously ignored binaries whosecomponents are both consistent with the mass of neutron stars $(1 M_\odot$ to $2 M_\odot)$ and have high dimensionless spin $>0.05$. While previous searchestargeted sources that are representative of observed neutron star binaries inthe galaxy, it is already known that neutron stars can regularly be spun up toa dimensionless spin of $\sim0.4$, and in principle reach up to $\sim0.7$before breakup would occur. Furthermore, there may be primordial black holebinaries or exotic formation mechanisms to produce light black holes. In thesecases, it is possible for the binary constituent to be spun up beyond thatachievable by a neutron star. A single detection of this type of source wouldreveal a novel formation channel for compact-binaries. To determine if there isevidence for any such sources, we use PyCBC to conduct a targeted search ofLIGO and Virgo data for light compact objects with high spin. Our analysisdetects previously known observations GW170817 and GW200115; however, we reportno additional mergers. The most significant candidate, not previously known, isconsistent with the noise distribution, and so we constrain the merger rate ofspinning light binaries.