We propose to begin the development of the LIGO Open Science Center (LOSC), which will give access to LIGO data to a broad user community. The LOSC will gather relevant data products generated by the LIGO Laboratory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and its partner scientific collaborations, and make those data products available to outside users along with tools and support for those users' goals. The LOSC will operate before, during, and beyond operation of the Advanced LIGO observations, providing user services that are not funded or available in any other way. Data products, supplied by LIGO Laboratory and the LSC, will include low-latency transient GW event candidate broadcasts; catalogs with information about confirmed transient and long-duration detections; the full strain time series data stream in 6 month intervals with associated data quality information; and digital data products associated with all LIGO and LSC publications. When completed, the LOSC will provide (a) a web portal, client tools, and a layer of data access services through which the user can discover and access a range of LIGO data and metadata products; (b) long-term data curation; (c) user documentation, helpdesk, online tutorials, and user feedback forums; (d) sponsorship of tutorials, workshops and conferences to help users derive maximal science from the data and communicate their experiences and findings to each other and to the LSC; and (e) LIGO data-centric resources to facilitate LIGO and LSC education and public outreach efforts about gravitational wave and related science. In FY13 we will begin the initial development phase of the LOSC and provide a foundation for continued development and deployment in the era of Advanced LIGO operations (FY14 and beyond).
The public release of LIGO data by the LOSC will enable broad participation in the advancement of gravitational wave physics and astrophysics. Numerical relativists, relativity theorists, and astronomers and astrophysicists will use LIGO observations to better understand the dynamics of strongly curved spacetime, and the origins and properties of gravitational wave sources. The LOSC will enable cross-disciplinary science throughout the relativity and astrophysics community, enabling scientists to ask deeper questions and carry the field in new directions. It will be interoperable with other astronomy data systems from both NASA and the NSF Virtual Observatory, to enable joint data mining and cross-referencing with other archives. It will promote international efforts for open data through interactions with gravitational wave projects in France, India, Italy, and Japan. It will extend and leverage the LIGO observations by making data available and usable into the far future. It will enable the use of LIGO data for education of university undergraduates and graduate students, and amateur and professional scientists, throughout the nation and the world. Through the activities of LIGO Laboratory and LSC outreach efforts, it will provide resources for public outreach to build interest and excitement in gravitational wave and multi-messenger astronomy in young scientists and the public.
Work performed under this award enabled the LIGO Laboratory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC; ligo.org) to release to the public two years of data taken by the project's three gravitational wave detectors during LIGO's fifth science run (S5) that occurred from 2005 through 2007. The LIGO data release (see figure 1) comes with detailed metadata, tutorials, tools and software that will help public users perform effective analyses. The release will promote broad participation in the advancement of gravitational wave physics and astrophysics from professional and amateur scientists, graduate students, undergraduates and secondary students. Participants are invited to help improve the quality of LIGO's scientific results, including the verification of results already produced by the LSC. The LSC has analyzed LIGO's S5 data; no gravitational wave candidate signals were found in the LSC searches. LIGO will release more data sets in future years. Eventually these public releases will include data from the upgraded Advanced LIGO detectors that will begin operating in 2015. LIGO expects that such releases could include gravitational wave signals that have been identified by the LSC. Should regular gravitational wave detections begin to occur, public participation in LIGO data analysis will add an exciting dimension to gravitational wave astronomy. Numerical relativists, relativity theorists, astrophysicists and others will use LIGO data to better understand the dynamics of strongly curved spacetime along with the origins and properties of gravitational wave sources. LIGO anticipates that data analysis in the LSC will improve as a result of this effort to make releases that the broader community can easily understand and use. The international network of gravitational wave o bservatories continues to move toward a model of shared data analysis; the public release program will facilitate the growth of this global capability. Please visit the LIGO Open Science Center (LOSC) Web site, losc.ligo.org . The LOSC site offers a number of resources to help participants understand gravitational wave science and LIGO data. LIGO encourages users to register for the LOSC email list (see figure 2). List subscribers will stay informed of updates and future releases, and can send questions and comments to the LOSC development team. See more at: www.ligo.org/news/s5-data-release.php The LIGO Laboratory is operated by Caltech and MIT for the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The LIGO Open Science Center is supported by NSF awards 1210172 and 0757058.
