Data Handling and Analysis Infrastructure for Advanced LIGO and Beyond

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The LIGO Data Grid (LDG) is a distributed computational facility that hosts the middleware and support personnel needed to turn a collection of computer clusters into a powerful data analysis engine for gravitational wave science. Development, deployment and support of the LDG was provided by the NSF award "Enabling gravitational-wave astronomy on the LIGO Data Grid" [PHY-0600953]. This award provides continuing support for the skilled personnel who will continue to support and maintain the LDG and deliver the substantial improvements in services, scalability and reliability needed by Advanced LIGO. The primary goals of this proposal are: to allow the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) to complete the analysis of Initial LIGO observations; to deliver the software infrastructure and LDG services to support gravitational-wave astronomy with Advanced LIGO and its international partners; to provide the cyber-infrastructure needed to bring gravitational-wave astronomy together with the broader astronomical community; and to prototype tools for open access to LIGO data for the scientific community and the public.Gravitational waves and black holes are among the most dramatic predictions of Einstein's General theory of Relativity. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) is an ambitious NSF-funded project designed to directly detect gravitational waves and to use these waves to explore the universe. LIGO forms part of a world-wide network of gravitational-wave observatories poised to probe black holes, neutron stars, supernovae and the early universe using gravitational-waves as a new astronomical tool. The Advanced LIGO detectors are currently under construction and will begin their first observations in approximately 2015. The first direct detection of gravitational waves will be a watershed event in 21st century physics and astronomy. The scientific goals of the LSC rely on a substantial computational infrastructure, which spans astrophysical data analysis, detector and analysis middleware, software sustainability and computational hardware support. Initial LIGO has shown that cyber-infrastructure is as essential to gravitational-wave astronomy as the detectors themselves. It will not be possible to detect gravitational-wave sources, to study their properties, and to maximize the NSF's investment in LIGO without support for the enabling computational technologies. This award to develop and sustain Advanced LIGO's cyber-infrastructure will allow the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to be ready for the transformative new science that gravitational-wave observations will bring. The LDG research program will train students and postdocs to be experts in next-generation cyber-infrastructure, push the boundaries of LIGO's geographically distributed, locally-available computational data grid, and sustain the operation of this cyber-infrastructure to support LIGO's science mission. Collaborations with external partners (including Internet2, Globus, Condor and Pegasus) will have significant impact outside the LSC.