Gravitational Waves from Compact Objects

来自致密物体的引力波

• 批准号: 1506311
• 负责人: Benjamin Owen
• 金额: $ 6万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1506311&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Gravitational; Waves; Compact; Objects

The General Theory of Relativity discovered by Einstein tells us that the familiar, everyday force of gravity is a manifestation of something much stranger: the bending of the geometry of space-time by matter. Among the key predictions of the theory, which includes the expanding Universe and the existence of black holes, is the existence of gravitational waves (GW): ripples moving at the speed of light in the geometry of space-time caused by the fast motion of large masses. Although well tested in terms of their indirect effects on binary systems of compact stars, the direct detection of gravitational waves incident on Earth poses an outstanding challenge. The scientific rewards from achieving this ability would be enormous - ranging from probing the extreme dynamics of exploding stars to gleaning information about the state of the Universe almost at the moment of the Big Bang itself. The effort to enable this new window on the universe has occupied several decades of experimental and technological developments that have pushed the boundaries across diverse fields in the physical sciences. The year 2015 will mark a highly-anticipated watershed moment for gravitational-wave physics: The two advanced Laser Interferomenter Gravitational Wave Observatory (aLIGO) detectors will start their initial data taking runs, followed by the commissioning of the advanced Virgo gravitational wave observatory in Europe. The sensitivity of the aLIGO detector will be ramped up to become about ten times better than that of the first-generation detectors, opening up a spatial volume for observing GW sources that will be 1000 times larger than before. This award supports the first searches of Advanced LIGO data for gravitational waves from the youngest neutron stars in the galaxy. As they spin down over the years, these stars can tell us about the properties of matter under the most extreme conditions since the Big Bang: supernuclear densities, relativistic speeds, superconducting and superfluid at a hundred million degrees. One day they may also be used to test whether Einstein's general theory of relativity is the correct description of gravity at astrophysical scales.The bulk of the work involves the upgrade and implementation of a data analysis code pipeline to perform matched filtering searches for continuous gravitational waves from young supernova remnants. Improvements in the code and data will allow more sensitive searches than ever before. This code will also be adapted for the purpose of detector characterization to assist with improving the LIGO interferometers' performance over the course of their first science run, particularly with regard to narrow-band spectral artifacts.

爱因斯坦发现的相对论的一般理论告诉我们，熟悉的，每天的重力力量是陌生人事物的一种体现：当时时空的几何形状的弯曲。在包括扩展的宇宙和黑洞的存在在内的理论的关键预测中，是引力波的存在（GW）：在大质量快速运动引起的时空的几何形状中以光速移动的波纹。尽管根据其对紧凑型恒星的二元系统的间接影响进行了良好的测试，但直接检测到地球上的重力波却带来了出色的挑战。从实现这一能力中获得的科学奖励将是巨大的 - 从探测爆炸恒星的极端动态到在大爆炸本身时几乎几乎在收集有关宇宙状态的信息。使宇宙上这个新窗口的努力占据了数十年的实验和技术发展，这已经推动了物理科学领域的界限。 2015年将标志着引力波物理学的备受期待的分水岭：两种高级激光干预剂引力波观测站（ALIGO）探测器将开始进行初始数据进行运行，然后调试欧洲先进的Virgo重力引力波动波动台。 Aligo检测器的灵敏度将被提高到比第一代探测器的敏感性大约十倍，从而为观察GW源的空间体积打开了比以前大的1000倍的空间体积。该奖项支持了来自银河系中最年轻的中子恒星的引力波的先进LIGO数据的首次搜索。 这些年来，随着它们的旋转，这些恒星可以在大爆炸以来最极端的条件下告诉我们物质的特性：超核密度，相对论速度，超导和超流体以一亿度。 有一天，它们还可以用于测试爱因斯坦的相对论一般理论是否是天体物理尺度上重力的正确描述。大部分工作涉及升级和实施数据分析代码管道，以执行与年轻超级新星残留物中连续的重力搜索进行匹配的过滤搜索。 代码和数据的改进将允许比以往任何时候都更敏感的搜索。 该代码也将适应探测器表征，以帮助提高LiGo干涉仪在其第一次科学运行过程中的性能，尤其是在窄带光谱伪影方面。