Research in Gravitational Wave Detection with LIGO

随着激光干涉仪引力波天文台（Laser Interferometer gravitational wave Observatory，简称LIGO）三个干涉仪的建成，引力波探测的新时代即将开始。锡拉丘兹大学的引力波研究小组打算在未来三年里在LIGO的改进和观测活动中发挥关键作用。他们将开展探测器表征活动来指导这项工作，将努力理解干涉仪产生的数据，并将帮助优化搜索引力波的方法。为了支持这些活动，他们将把他们在锡拉丘兹的实验室设施用于实验，以调查LIGO天文台仪器中可能发现的任何异常情况。此外，该小组将开发一套实验室教学站，作为暑期学校的核心，为新进入引力波探测领域的科学家提供服务。一旦LIGO开始收集它所设计的那种数据，我们就有可能在宇宙中发现戏剧性的新发现。LIGO最初的数据运行结果可以揭示黑洞、伽马射线暴、中子星和超新星。进行这些观测的仪器极大地扩展了精密测量技术的水平。

A new era in gravitational wave detection is about to begin, with the completion of the three interferometers of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO. The gravitational wave research group at Syracuse University intends to play a key role in LIGO's improvement and observing activities over the next three years. They will carry out detector characterization activities to guide this work, will strive to understand the data produced by the interferometers, and will help optimize methods for searching for gravitational waves. In support of these activities, they will devote their laboratory facilities at Syracuse to experiments that will investigate any anomalies that may be discovered in the instruments at the LIGO observatories. In addition, the group will develop a set of laboratory teaching stations, as the nucleus of a summer school for scientists new to the field of gravitational wave detection.Once LIGO is collecting the sort of data for which it was designed, we will be in a position where dramatic new discoveries about the universe are possible. The results of LIGO's initial data run could shed light on black holes, gamma ray bursts, neutron stars, and supernovae. The instruments carrying out these observations have dramatically extended the state of the art of precision measurement technology.