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

随着2015年9月发现引力波，LIGO的合作开始了一场新的科学冒险，通过使用引力波探索宇宙。俄勒冈州的团队在这一发现中发挥了重要作用。它负责测量潜在的地球对引力波信号的潜在贡献的传感器阵列，例如地面运动、环境磁场或射频场、声学噪声等。这项工作将在本奖项的未来三年继续发挥关键作用，因为LIGO预计将探测到许多引力波信号，可能来自各种天体物理源。事实上，俄勒冈研究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的极大兴趣，反映了公众对探索我们的宇宙的兴趣。这一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，其中最著名的是天文学。最后，为该项目工作的研究生和博士后助理的教育将促进技术力量的发展。俄勒冈州小组一直是开发LIGO探测器及其相关科学计划准备工作的关键参与者。该小组从最初LIGO的最早数据采集开始，在探测器背景噪声的表征领域和涉及相关天体物理信号的数据分析技术领域做出了重要贡献。具体地说，在仪器方面，他们学会了如何描述所有已知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”对应于除引力波以外的任何外部影响。这使得LIGO能够就这种扰动对假定的引力波探测的潜在贡献作出明确的声明。在数据分析方面，俄勒冈州小组开创了一个科学计划，该计划搜索与天体物理事件相关的瞬时引力波信号，这些事件在时间和天空位置上都有很好的局部性，并且是潜在的GW源。这些外部“触发因素”包括来自伽玛暴的伽马射线，来自磁星的X射线爆发，以及来自核心坍塌超新星的中微子。

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.