Gravitational Radiation Sources for Cryogenic Resonant Bar Detectors

这项职业奖将启动一个新的理论研究计划，研究与设计下一代高频工作的声波重力波探测器有关的问题。适当考虑探测器噪声的数据分析技术将适用于截断等面体重力天线的TIGA设计。这些技术将用于评估几个与天体物理相关的高频引力辐射源，包括但不限于来自双中子星或恒星质量黑洞系统合并的最终辐射爆发、超新星爆炸、进动脉冲星和一般非轴对称脉冲星。提出了一个教育计划，重点是向非理科学生传达科学探究的性质和进行科学探究的方式。该项目的载体是一门符合大学分配要求的天文学课程。例如，将建立计算机实验室，允许学生通过检查星团内恒星的分布来确定星团的年龄，或者校准距离标度，并找到模型宇宙的哈勃常数和年龄。此外，还将在同一课程中引入一种新的评估和学习辅助工具--概念图。概念是一个物体，例如恒星、行星、星系、黑洞或一个事件，例如日食、新星、恒星年。新概念开始被理解为它们与先前已知概念的关系。对已知概念的更深入理解对应于在它们之间建立新的关系。概念图是学生逐渐认识的概念及其之间关系的图形化表示。

This CAREER award will initiate a new theoretical research program to study issues connected with the design of the next generation of acoustic gravitational wave detectors designed to operate at high frequency. Data analysis techniques that properly account for detector noise will be adapted to the truncated isocahedral gravitational antenna TIGA design. These techniques will be used to evaluate several astrophysically relevant high-frequency gravitational radiation sources, including but not limited to the final burst of radiation from the coalescence of a binary neutron star or stellar mass black hole system, supernovae explosions, precessing pulsars, and general non axisymmetric pulsars. An educational program is proposed that focuses on communicating to non-science students the nature of scientific inquiry and the manner in which it is conducted. The vehicle for this program is an astronomy course that fulfills a university distribution requirement. Computer laboratories will be constructed that will allow students to, for example, determine the age of a star cluster by examining the distribution of stars within it, or calibrate the distance scale and find the Hubble constant and age of a model universe. In addition, a novel evaluation and study aid - concept maps - will be introduced into the same course. A concept is an object e.g., star, planet, galaxy, black hole or an event e.g., eclipse, nova, sidereal year . New concepts come to be understood in terms of their relationships with concepts previously known. Deeper understanding of concepts already known corresponds to the construction of new relationships between them. A concept map is a graphical representation of the concepts and the relationships among them that a student has come to recognize.