A Search for Gravitational Radiation at LIGO: Oregon Experimental Relativity Group

在 LIGO 寻找引力辐射：俄勒冈实验相对论小组

• 批准号: 1607336
• 负责人: Raymond Frey
• 金额: $ 90万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1607336&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Search; Gravitational; Radiation; LIGO; Oregon

With the discovery of gravitational waves in September 2015, the LIGO collaboration is beginning a new scientific adventure by the exploration of the cosmos with gravitational waves. The Oregon group played an important role in the discovery. It is responsible for the large array of sensors which measure potential underlying terrestrial contributions to the gravitational wave signals, for example from ground motion, ambient magnetic or radio-frequency fields, acoustic noise, etc. This work will continue to be crucial over the next three years of this award, as LIGO expects to detect many gravitational-wave signals, perhaps arising from a wide variety of astrophysical sources. In fact, the other key contribution of the Oregon group is the search for one class of such sources - those associated with gamma-ray bursts. The discovery sparked tremendous public interest, reflecting the public appetite for the exploration of our universe. The publication of the scientific results from this research program has already contributed to advancement of other scientific disciplines, most notably astronomy. Finally, the education of the graduate students and postdoctoral associates working on the project will advance the technical workforce.The Oregon group has been a key player in developing the readiness of the LIGO detectors and its associated scientific program. Starting with the earliest data taking with initial LIGO, the group has made key contributions in the areas of characterization of detector background noise and in the data analysis techniques involving associated astrophysical signals. Specifically, on the instrument side, they have learned how to characterize the coupling of all known sources of environmental disturbances with gravitational-wave detection, and to monitor these couplings. Here, "environment" corresponds to any external influence other than gravitational waves. This allows LIGO to make clear statements about the potential contributions of such disturbances to putative gravitational-wave detections. On the data analysis side, the Oregon group has pioneered the science program which searches for transient gravitational-wave signals associated with astrophysical events which are well localized in time and sky position, and which are potential GW sources. These external "triggers" include gamma rays from GRBs, x-ray bursts from magnetars, and neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae.

随着2015年9月引力波的发现，LIGO合作开始了一场新的科学冒险，用引力波探索宇宙。俄勒冈州群在这一发现中发挥了重要作用。它负责大型传感器阵列，这些传感器测量潜在的地面对引力波信号的贡献，例如来自地面运动，环境磁场或射频场，声学噪声等，这项工作在该奖项的未来三年内将继续至关重要，因为LIGO预计将探测到许多引力波信号，可能来自各种各样的天体物理源。事实上，俄勒冈州小组的另一个关键贡献是寻找一类这样的源--那些与伽马射线爆发有关的源。这一发现引起了公众极大的兴趣，反映了公众对探索宇宙的兴趣。这项研究计划的科学成果的出版已经为其他科学学科的进步做出了贡献，特别是天文学。最后，参与该项目的研究生和博士后人员的教育将促进技术人员的发展。俄勒冈州小组一直是LIGO探测器及其相关科学计划准备工作的关键参与者。从最初的LIGO最早的数据开始，该小组在探测器背景噪声的表征和涉及相关天体物理信号的数据分析技术领域做出了关键贡献。具体来说，在仪器方面，他们已经学会了如何描述所有已知的环境干扰源与引力波探测的耦合，并监测这些耦合。在这里，“环境”对应于引力波以外的任何外部影响。这使得LIGO能够清楚地说明这种扰动对假定的引力波探测的潜在贡献。在数据分析方面，俄勒冈州小组开创了一项科学计划，该计划搜索与天体物理事件相关的瞬态引力波信号，这些信号在时间和天空位置上都很好地定位，并且是潜在的GW源。这些外部“触发器”包括来自伽玛暴的伽马射线、来自磁星的X射线爆发以及来自核心坍缩超新星的中微子。