This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Nearly hundred years after the debut of Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are viewed as one of the most intriguing but still elusive astrophysical phenomena. They are expected to be emitted by extreme astrophysical sources such as merging black hole binary systems, spinning neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts or supernovae. Superb and finely tuned gravitational-wave telescopes are required for detection and astrophysics investigations. This award will enable members of the Columbia Experimental Gravity group to participate in activities to improve the performance of the LIGO gravitational wave detectors. Group members will focus on mission-critical activities directly affecting the sensitivity of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration's searches for cosmic gravitational waves such as detector diagnostics and calibration. A well characterized and precisely calibrated detector in turn could enable the data analysts to execute searches that see farther, see more, produce fewer false alarms and extract more information from plausible future detections. Students from high school through graduate level will have the opportunity to participate in this research. In addition, the urban setting and existing outreach infrastructure of Columbia University will enable unique educational and outreach activities based on this research that target schools not only in the local community but also in the greater New York City metropolitan area.
