Gravitational physics is on the edge of a discovery that will shake its foundation: the direct detection of gravitational waves, tiny oscillations of the curvature of space-time that were predicted 100 years ago by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Gravitational waves are produced by changes in the gravitational field of accelerating masses, and their detection will reveal information from the most cataclysmic and mysterious events in the Universe: the death of a star, the collision of black holes, and the Big Bang. This new era of gravitational physics is being ushered in by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and its sister project Virgo. This year marks the completion of hardware upgrades that form Advanced LIGO, a quantum-noise-limited laser interferometer which will probe about 1000 times more galaxies than initial LIGO. Source population studies suggest it will routinely detect gravitational waves from the collision of neutron stars and black holes. This award supports mission critical research for the detection of gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO at the Georgia Institute of Technology, for the detection, characterization and astrophysical interpretation of gravitational wave transient signals in data from the first Advanced LIGO science runs.
This project has three components: (1) participation in the LIGO-Virgo all-sky search for generic gravitational wave transients, sensitive to a wide range of compact object signatures, including core-collapse supernovae, coalescence of neutron star and/or black hole binary systems and neutron star oscillations, (2) development of innovative approaches to blending data analysis and numerical relativity, with contribution to targeted searches for binary black hole coalescences, and (3) characterization of Advanced LIGO data to enable scientific discovery, to deliver the data quality information necessary to clean the data sets and veto false positives, and to identify data quality issues early enough that they can be mitigated in the instruments, within the LIGO Detector Characterization team. The award will benefit from the long term collaboration of the PI and co-PI and a synergistic team at the GeorgiaTech Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, with experts in computational astrophysics, cosmology, particle astrophysics, astronomy, the college of computing and a strong outreach program in Atlanta, enhanced by the new ties to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and a firm commitment to diversity and the role of women in STEM.
