Gravitational waves from known pulsars: results from the initial detector era

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We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo.

• We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude.
• We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities.
• We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits.