Status and recent results of the LIGO experiment

                                                                    Brian O'Reilly

                                       California Institute of Technology and LIGO

 

Currently LIGO is preparing for a fifth science run which is expected to last on order of twelve months. We expect to run at or close to design sensitivity and fulfill our mandate for initial LIGO. I will discuss some of the improvements to the instruments which have made this possible. There are four main analysis working groups engaged in searching for gravitational waves from different sources. I will describe some of the analyses and recent publications with an emphasis on the search for signals from inspiralling binary systems and burst sources.