A search for sinusoidal gravitational radiation in the period range 30-2000 seconds

The Doppler tracking time series of a distant spacecraft can be used to search for very low frequency gravitational radiation. Earth and the spacecraft act as free test masses with the radio tracking system continuously measuring their relative dimensionless velocity, Δv/c. An incident gravitational wave produces small perturbations in this Doppler tracking record. The authors report here a search for sinusoidal gravitational radiation using Pioneer 11 tracking data taken in the spring of 1983. For the period range 30 - 2000 s the search yielded results consistent with noise only; the one standard deviation sensitivity threshold for the amplitude of sinusoidal fractional frequency fluctuations was 1.5×10⁻¹⁴.