The Transient Universe as Seen in Gravitational Waves by LIGO

在爱因斯坦预言引力波（时空曲率中的涟漪）应该存在的一百年后，激光干涉仪引力波天文台（LIGO）的科学家测量了距离地球13亿光年的一对黑洞碰撞产生的引力波。这一首次探测开启了一个科学发现的新时代：在这个时代，引力波观测对理解瞬态宇宙至关重要。这笔拨款支持威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校LIGO科学合作（UWM LSC）小组的研究活动。主题是引力波天文学，重点是在LIGO科学成功的关键路径上的活动。该项目的最大特点是协同作用：将在重力物理学、天体物理学、数据分析、教育和推广方面具有良好记录的高度敬业的教师与本科生、研究生和博士后一起，在一个密切合作的环境中提供引力波科学，并让更广泛的社区参与到即将到来的发现中。该项目将通过诸如威斯康星大学天文馆等外展工作，向社区传达这一新兴天文学分支的兴奋之情。UWM LSC小组将提供关键元素，用于低延迟搜索瞬态引力波，包括双中子星和黑洞合并期间产生的引力波。该小组将帮助开发和操作数据校准系统，从紧凑二进制合并中在线搜索信号，以及快速参数估计管道。信号的快速识别是先进探测器时代引力波科学的基本要素，并将使多信使天文学成为可能，在这种天文学中，几种观测（引力波、电磁波、高能粒子）被合成，以获得对宇宙中最灾难性事件来源的详细了解。引力波将揭示伽马射线爆发的内部机制，提供一种测量黑洞数量和确定大质量黑洞生长通道的方法，并探索核密度以上物质的基本性质。测量宇宙学参数的新方法将成为可能，以补充现有的观测。为此，该奖项支持的工作将继续产生引力波发现双星合并，提供快速的天空定位和参数估计，以促进电磁后续工作，产生由其他观测设施产生的触发触发的快速旋转目标搜索，通过测量双星合并前的潮汐相互作用获得核状态方程。并利用引力波观测来测量各种宇宙学参数。该奖项支持将引力波科学纳入更广泛的天体物理学领域。UWM LSC小组在培养新研究人员方面表现出色。本项目将培养新一代引力波天文学的研究生和博士后。一个主要的成果是为LIGO校准数据集，这对科学有着巨大的影响。除了被世界各地数百名科学家用于引力波搜索之外，校准后的数据将被分发给超过25万名搜索引力波的Einstein@Home用户。根据LIGO开放数据政策，该数据集也将向科学界和广大公众开放。

One hundred years after Einstein predicted that gravitational waves, ripples in the curvature of spacetime, should exist, scientists in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) measured the waves from a pair of black holes that collided 1.3 billion light years from Earth. This first detection has ushered in a new era of scientific discovery: an era in which gravitational-wave observations are of vital importance for understanding the transient universe. This grant supports the research activities of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee LIGO Scientific Collaboration (UWM LSC) group. The theme is gravitational-wave astronomy with an emphasis on activities on the critical path for the scientific success of LIGO. The project's strongest feature is the synergy: bringing highly-engaged faculty with a proven track record in gravitational physics, astrophysics, data analysis, and education and outreach together with undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs in a close collaborative environment to deliver gravitational-wave science and to engage the broader community in the discoveries to come. This project will convey the excitement of this budding branch of astronomy to the community through outreach efforts such as the UWM Planetarium.The UWM LSC group will deliver critical elements to a low-latency search for transient gravitational waves including those produced during the coalescence of binary neutron stars and black holes. The group will help develop and operate the data-calibration system, an on-line search for signals from compact binary coalescence, and a rapid parameter estimation pipeline. Rapid identification of signals is an essential element of gravitational-wave science in the Advanced Detector Era, and will enable multi-messenger astronomy in which observations of several kinds (gravitational waves; electromagnetic waves; high energy particles) are synthesized to obtain a detailed understanding of the sources of the most cataclysmic events in the universe. Gravitational waves will reveal the inner mechanism of gamma-ray bursts, provide a means to measure the population of black holes and determine the channel by which massive black holes are grown, and probe the fundamental nature of matter above nuclear densities. New ways of measuring cosmological parameters will become available, complementing existing observations. To this end, this award supports work that will continue to produce gravitational-wave discoveries of binary coalescence, provide rapid sky-localization and parameter estimation to facilitate electromagnetic follow-up efforts, yield fast turn-around targeted searches prompted by triggers generated by other observational facilities, obtain the nuclear equation of state by measuring the tidal interactions of binary neutron stars just prior to their merger, and exploit gravitational-wave observations to measure various cosmological parameters. This award supports the integration of gravitational-wave science into the broader field of astrophysics. The UWM LSC group excels at educating new researchers. This project will train a new generation of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in gravitational-wave astronomy. A main deliverable is a calibrated data set for LIGO which has immense scientific broader impacts. In addition to being used in gravitational wave searches by hundreds of scientists around the world, calibrated data will be distributed to more than 250,000 Einstein@Home users in searches for gravitational waves. As per LIGO open data policy, the data set will also be made available to the scientific community and the public at large.