A New Spin: The Next Generation of Gravitational-Wave Searches for Merging Black Holes

新的旋转：下一代引力波搜索合并黑洞

• 批准号: 2309332
• 负责人: Sarah Caudill
• 金额: $ 18万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-15 至 2026-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2309332&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: New; Spin; Next; Generation; Gravitational

Current gravitational-wave searches for signals from merging black holes and neutron stars have been extraordinarily successful, allowing us to probe new astrophysics and test strong-field gravity. However, these searches have not yet begun to access the full, rich discovery space of gravitational-wave signals. In particular, if binary black holes have large, misaligned spins and asymmetric masses, then the binary’s orbit will precess. The resulting gravitational waves can have significant amplitude and phase modulations, causing the signals to be missed entirely by current searches. However, measurement of these modulations would allow us to disentangle various binary parameters, enabling more accurate probes of fundamental physics in the strong-gravity regime than are possible with current detections. This award supports the development of tools needed to search for and potentially detect this important class of precessing signals. Additionally, this work will provide data-analysis skill training for undergraduates participating in this research with the PI, particularly through the ACCOMPLISH program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth which seeks to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high achieving undergraduates. The work supported by this award will access the interesting class of precessing binary black holes using a two-pronged approach. The PI and a PhD student will design and perform a gravitational-wave search for moderately-precessing binary systems using a two-harmonic approximation to the precessing waveform, enabling the exploitation of the well-behaved morphology of the separate harmonics. Additionally, the group will design and perform a gravitational-wave search for highly-precessing binary systems using a generalization of the matched-filter statistic over a constrained region of parameter space. These searches will be deployed over archival gravitational-wave data, potentially making a detection of a precessing gravitational-wave signal or setting meaningful upper limits on the rates of mergers of such systems. The development work enabled by this award will inform future directions for more complex searches in general, particularly as we move to the third generation of gravitational-wave detectors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

当前的重力搜索是合并黑洞和中子星的信号，这是非常成功的新天体物理学，但是这些搜索尚未开始访问重力 - 波 - 波的全部发现空间尤其是，如果二进制黑洞孔孔孔孔孔孔孔孔，那么二进制的轨道将预言。可以通过当前检测来检测这一重要的进攻信号。低收入的地下，在有趣的二进制黑孔中支持的工作。对于进攻的波形，可以利用匹配的过滤器对受约束的统计量的概括来设计和执行重力波搜索高度不必要的二进制系统这些搜索将 @ the preepssing trave信号或设置有意义的上限。奖项反映了NSF的Beenend Demed值得支持Thalugh评估，并使用Toundatuntelectu al功绩和更广泛的影响审查标准。