A Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Flaring Magnetars during the third Observing run of Advanced LIGO/Virgo

Magnetars are neutron stars with exceptionally strong dipole magnetic fields which are observed to display a range of x-ray flaring behavior. The third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo extended from April 1, 2019 to March 27, 2020, and contained x-ray flares from known magnetar SGR 1935+2154, as well as the newly-discovered magnetar, Swift J1818. We search for gravitational waves coincident with these magnetar flares with minimally modeled, coherent searches which specifically target both short-duration gravitational waves produced by excited f-modes in the magnetar’s core, as well as long-duration gravitational waves associated with the Quasi-Periodic Oscillations observed in the tails of giant flares. In this talk, we report on the results of these searches, and the astrophysical implications.