Gravitational Waves from Compact Objects

爱因斯坦发现的广义相对论告诉我们，人们熟悉的日常引力是某种更奇怪的东西的表现：物质扭曲了时空的几何形状。在该理论的关键预测中，包括膨胀的宇宙和黑洞的存在，是引力波(GW)的存在：大质量的快速运动导致时空几何中以光速运动的涟漪。虽然在对致密恒星的双星系统的间接影响方面得到了很好的测试，但直接探测入射到地球上的引力波构成了一个突出的挑战。实现这一能力的科学回报将是巨大的--从探索恒星爆炸的极端动力学到收集几乎在大爆炸时刻的宇宙状态信息。这一新的宇宙窗口的努力占据了几十年的实验和技术发展，推动了物理科学中不同领域的边界。2015年将是引力波物理学备受期待的分水岭时刻：两个先进的激光干涉仪引力波天文台(ALIGO)探测器将开始进行初始数据采集，随后欧洲先进的处女座引力波观测站将投入使用。ALIGO探测器的灵敏度将提高到比第一代探测器高约十倍，为观测GW源开辟了一个比以前大1000倍的空间体积。该奖项支持对高级LIGO数据的首次搜索，以寻找银河系中最年轻的中子星的引力波。随着这些恒星多年来的不断向下旋转，它们可以告诉我们自大爆炸以来最极端的条件下物质的性质：超核密度、相对论速度、超导和1亿度的超流体。有朝一日，它们还可能被用来测试爱因斯坦的广义相对论是否正确地描述了天体物理尺度上的引力。大部分工作涉及升级和实施数据分析代码管道，以执行匹配过滤搜索来自年轻超新星遗迹的连续引力波。代码和数据的改进将允许比以往任何时候都更敏感的搜索。这一代码还将用于探测器特性的确定，以协助改进LIGO干涉仪在其第一次科学运行过程中的性能，特别是在窄带光谱伪迹方面。

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, which includes the expanding Universe and the existence of black holes, is the existence of gravitational waves (GW): 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 year 2015 will mark a highly-anticipated watershed moment for gravitational-wave physics: The two advanced Laser Interferomenter Gravitational Wave Observatory (aLIGO) detectors will start their initial data taking runs, followed by the commissioning of the advanced Virgo gravitational wave observatory in Europe. The sensitivity of the aLIGO detector will be ramped up to become about ten times better than that of the first-generation detectors, opening up a spatial volume for observing GW sources that will be 1000 times larger than before. This award supports the first searches of Advanced LIGO data for gravitational waves from the youngest neutron stars in the galaxy. As they spin down over the years, these stars can tell us about the properties of matter under the most extreme conditions since the Big Bang: supernuclear densities, relativistic speeds, superconducting and superfluid at a hundred million degrees. One day they may also be used to test whether Einstein's general theory of relativity is the correct description of gravity at astrophysical scales.The bulk of the work involves the upgrade and implementation of a data analysis code pipeline to perform matched filtering searches for continuous gravitational waves from young supernova remnants. Improvements in the code and data will allow more sensitive searches than ever before. This code will also be adapted for the purpose of detector characterization to assist with improving the LIGO interferometers' performance over the course of their first science run, particularly with regard to narrow-band spectral artifacts.