Gravitational Radiation and Relativistic Astrophysics

引力辐射和相对论天体物理学

• 批准号: 0099568
• 负责人: Kip Thorne
• 金额: $ 93万
• 依托单位: California Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-05-01 至 2006-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0099568&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Gravitational; Radiation; Relativistic; Astrophysics

Theoretical research is being carried out in two areas related togravitational waves and their detection. The first area is theinvention of new techniques and technology for advancedlaser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors. These advanceddetectors will entail measuring the motions of 40 kilogramsapphire-crystal mirrors with an accuracy so high that the mirrors aregoverned by the laws of quantum mechanics and not the laws of classicalphysics. The new techniques and technology entail, among other things,new configurations of mirrors and laser beams designed to deal withquantum effects that are absent in current gravitational-wavedetectors, changes in how the laser light is manipulated after itleaves the interferometer, and a reshaping of the cross sections of theinterferometer's light beams. The second area of research is thetheoretical modeling of astrophysical sources of gravitational waveswith the goal of predicting the sources' dynamical behaviors and thedetails of the waves they emit. Among the sources being modeled areoscillations of rapidly spinning, newborn neutron stars, the spins ofneutron stars that are accreting gas from companion stars (``Low-MassX-Ray Binaries''), the late, highly relativistic phase of inspiral ofblack-hole/black-hole and black-hole/neutron-star binaries, collisionsof black holes, and the tearing apart of a neutron star by a blackhole.The research on new techniques and technology for gravitational-wavedetectors is a key underpinning for the advanced detectors that arebeing proposed for construction in LIGO (the Laser InterferometerGravitational Wave Observatory) beginning in 2006, and for even moreadvanced detectors in the subsequent decade. This research makes useof, and contributes to, human knowledge in the area of quantuminformation theory --- a new, 21st century discipline that alsoincludes quantum computation. This research is likely to have muchimpact on areas of technology that---in the coming two or threedecades---will confront quantum limits on the accuracy of measurementand will try to evade them via ``quantum nondemolition'' (QND)techniques. These areas of technology include quantum optics andnanotechnology. The research on sources of gravitational waves willprovide key underpinnings for analyses of the gravitational-wave datato be produced by LIGO: It will improve the ability to findgravitational-wave signals in the noisy LIGO data, and it will providetools for extracting astrophysical information from the discoveredsignals. Thus, this research will play a key role in futuregravitational-wave-based studies of black holes, neutron stars, andtheir oscillations and collisions.

有关引力波及其探测的两个领域正在进行理论研究。第一个领域是先进激光干涉仪引力波探测器新技术的发明。这些先进的探测器将需要测量40公斤重的蓝宝石晶体镜子的运动，其精度如此之高，以至于镜子受量子力学定律而不是经典物理学定律的支配。这些新技术和新技术需要新的镜面和激光束结构来处理当前引力波探测器所没有的量子效应，改变激光离开干涉仪后的操作方式，重塑干涉仪光束的横截面。第二个研究领域是天体物理引力波源的理论建模，目的是预测引力波源的动力学行为和它们发射的引力波的细节。被建模的源包括快速旋转的振荡，新生的中子星，从伴星（“低质量x射线双星”）吸积气体的中子星的自旋，黑洞/黑洞和黑洞/中子星双星的后期，高度相对论性的吸气阶段，黑洞的碰撞，以及被黑洞撕裂的中子星。引力波探测器新技术和新技术的研究是2006年开始的LIGO（激光干涉引力波天文台）建设先进探测器的关键基础，并在随后的十年中为更先进的探测器提供支持。这项研究利用并促进了人类在量子信息论领域的知识——量子信息论是一门21世纪的新学科，也包括量子计算。这项研究可能会对未来二三十年的技术领域产生重大影响，这些领域将面临测量精度的量子限制，并将试图通过“量子非拆除”（QND）技术来逃避这些限制。这些技术领域包括量子光学和纳米技术。对引力波来源的研究将为LIGO产生的引力波数据的分析提供关键基础：它将提高在嘈杂的LIGO数据中发现引力波信号的能力，并将为从发现的信号中提取天体物理信息提供工具。因此，这项研究将在未来基于引力波的黑洞、中子星及其振荡和碰撞的研究中发挥关键作用。