Advanced LIGO Search for Continuous Gravitational Waves from Isolated and Binary Neutron Stars

爱因斯坦发现的广义相对论告诉我们，我们日常所熟悉的引力其实是某种更奇怪的东西的表现：物质对时空几何形状的弯曲。该理论的关键预测之一是引力波的存在：由大质量的快速运动引起的在时空几何中以光速运动的涟漪。虽然引力波对致密双星系统的间接影响已经得到了很好的验证，但直接探测地球上的引力波仍然是一个突出的挑战。实现这种能力的科学回报将是巨大的——从探测爆炸恒星的极端动力学到收集关于宇宙大爆炸时刻的状态的信息。这扇探索宇宙的新窗口耗费了数十年的实验和技术发展，突破了物理科学不同领域的界限。探测来自旋转中子星的连续引力波将是特别有趣的，因为许多这样的源预计会持续发射很长时间，从而允许后续研究提高精度，因为人们相信这些引力波将提供对这些奇异恒星鲜为人知的结构的洞察。在仪器和分析两方面进行的研究将为本科生和研究生提供在知识前沿的最新科学方面的培训。研究将集中在与先进激光干涉仪引力波天文台（Advanced LIGO）实验相关的一些特定领域：1)共同领导正在进行的LIGO科学合作组织对连续引力波的研究；2)利用密歇根大学引力波小组先前开发的程序，对来自孤立和双中子星的引力波进行搜索；3)开发新的搜索算法，提高灵敏度和计算效率；4)先进LIGO干涉仪的探测器特性，重点是谱线识别和减缓。

The General Theory of Relativity discovered by Einstein tells us that the familiar, everyday force of gravity is a manifestation of something much stranger: the bending of the geometry of space-time by matter. Among the key predictions of the theory is the existence of gravitational waves: ripples moving at the speed of light in the geometry of space-time caused by the fast motion of large masses. Although well tested in terms of their indirect effects on binary systems of compact stars, the direct detection of gravitational waves incident on Earth poses an outstanding challenge. The scientific rewards from achieving this ability would be enormous - ranging from probing the extreme dynamics of exploding stars to gleaning information about the state of the Universe almost at the moment of the Big Bang itself. The effort to enable this new window on the universe has occupied several decades of experimental and technological developments that have pushed the boundaries across diverse fields in the physical sciences. The detection of continuous gravitational waves from rotating neutron stars would be especially interesting because many such sources are expected to continue emitting for long durations, allowing follow-up investigation of increasing precision, and because it is believed that these waves will provide insight into the poorly known structure of these exotic stars. The research to be carried out, on both the instrumental and analytical sides, will provide training to undergraduate and graduate students in state-of-the-art science at the frontier of knowledge.Research will focus on a number of specific areas related to the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) Experiment: 1) co-leading the ongoing LIGO Scientific Collaboration's search for continuous gravitational waves; 2) carrying out searches for those waves from both isolated and binary neutron stars using programs developed previously by the University of Michigan gravitational waves group; 3) developing new search algorithms with improved sensitivity and computational efficiency; and 4) detector characterization of Advanced LIGO interferometers focused on spectral line identification and mitigation.