Preparing the Hardware Foundations of Environmental Vetoes for the Advanced LIGO Era

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Highly reliable, finely tuned gravitational-wave telescopes with exquisite sensitivity are required for the detection of gravitational-waves - ripples in the fabric of spacetime - and for astrophysics investigations that follow the first direct detection of them. This award will enable activities that ensure reliable operation and well understood data flow from the advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors. Our focus will be on mission-critical activities targeting the precisely documented, well-characterized and traceable operation of the aLIGO detectors and specifically their physical environment. Environmental disturbances, such as seismic, electromagnetic and acoustic signals, can couple into the complex infrastructure of the gravitational-wave detectors and cause transient, temporary, or continuous deterioration of the datastream that shall contain the gravitational wave signal. These artifacts in the gravitational wave data stream caused by the environment or sub-optimal interferometer tuning must be identified, tracked down, and eliminated or reduced if possible. We will focus on aspects of the evaluation, calibration and upgrade of the hardware components aimed to identify these physical environmental artifacts. The identification of environmental noise sources and the mitigation of their effect in the advanced LIGO era will be vital (1) for ensuring a discovery that is justifiable to the scientific community, and (2) for the realization of a spectrum of science goals for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, all relying on achieving the design sensitivity for the advanced detectors and on achieving the lowest possible false event rates. The proposed experimental efforts therefore will significantly contribute to all gravitational wave searches using the advanced detectors, including the multimessenger type transient searches. Students from high school through graduate level will have the opportunity to participate in this research. In addition, the urban setting and existing outreach infrastructure of Columbia University will enable unique educational and outreach activities based on this research that target schools not only in the local community but also in the greater New York City metropolitan area.