Collaborative Proposal: Enhanced Gravitational Wave Search via Simultaneous Advanced LIGO/Virgo and Evryscope Detection

合作提案：通过同时先进的 LIGO/Virgo 和 Evryscope 检测增强引力波搜索

• 批准号: 1806625
• 负责人: Nicholas Law
• 金额: $ 4万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1806625&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Proposal; Enhanced; Gravitational; Wave

The recent gravitational wave (GW) detection of the first binary neutron star (BNS) merger by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave observatories and its associated electromagnetic (EM) counterparts has ushered in a new era of multi-messenger astrophysics. The GW170817 event has inspired a new GW search strategy using simultaneous all-sky optical imaging measurements to provide improved detection confidence as well as source identification/localization. This grant will fund the development and testing of this improved GW search in Advanced LIGO/Virgo (aLIGO/Virgo) operation run 3 (O3), with the potential to substantially increase the number of confirmed GW detections. This will significantly improve the progress of science in the national interest by leveraging the existing investments in gravitational wave and optical observatories to provide an estimated ~25% enhancement in the number of detected systems during O3, and pave the way for future multi-messenger investigations that could potentially quadruple the number of detected sources. The proposed research is at the intersection of the multi-messenger astrophysics, general relativity, digital signal processing and computing, which require young researchers to develop a deep knowledge of modern astrophysical theories, and understanding of gravitational wave instrumentation, and gives them opportunity to get firsthand experience with sophisticated signal/image-processing algorithms, computational methods, manipulation of large data sets and high performance computing.The novel GW search proposed here is based on combining aLIGO/Virgo sub-threshold triggers with simultaneous optical imaging using the Evryscope technique. Evryscope images the entire observable night-time sky simultaneously with 2-minute cadence. Scientists can then select only those optical transient events in the aLIGO/Virgo error region which appear within the same 2-minute window as the GW candidate - reducing the GW-only false alarm probability by factors larger than 20,000. for any night-time GW events. This enables improved detection confidence for marginal GW events and thus enhanced GW detection volume. GW1708187's optical counterpart could be detected by the current Evryscope out to D ~260 Mpc, and future Evryscope-style systems to distances further than 350 Mpc. Analyses show that a future network of Evryscope-style detectors would enhance the number of GW events detected by a factor of ~2-4 compared to GW-only observations. Such a future network would particularly benefit GW source population studies and cosmological applications of GW events. This approach will also provide coverage of the brightest portion of the optical lightcurve, and arcsecond-level localization for all of these events, which will dramatically improve the EM followup response from the community as a whole, leading to improved astrophysical context for interpreting the implications of the GW event. The proposed work here is to carry out a sub-threshold GW search in aLIGO/Virgo O3, using the Evryscope North and South facilities for simultaneous optical coverage. Based on the properties of GW170817's GW properties, optical counterpart, and analyses presented here, such a search could add an additional ~25% more detections to the number of confirmed BNS mergers in O3.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

最近LIGO/Virgo引力波天文台及其相关电磁（EM）观测站对第一颗双星中子星星（BNS）合并的引力波（GW）探测开创了多信使天体物理学的新时代。GW 170817事件激发了一种新的GW搜索策略，该策略使用同步全天空光学成像测量来提供更高的检测置信度以及源识别/定位。这笔赠款将资助在Advanced LIGO/Virgo（aLIGO/Virgo）操作运行3（O3）中开发和测试这种改进的GW搜索，并有可能大幅增加确认GW检测的数量。这将通过利用现有的引力波和光学观测站的投资来显着提高国家利益的科学进步，以在O3期间提供约25%的检测系统数量增加，并为未来的多信使调查铺平道路，可能使检测到的源数量增加四倍。拟议的研究是多信使天体物理学，广义相对论，数字信号处理和计算的交叉点，这需要年轻的研究人员对现代天体物理学理论有深入的了解，并了解引力波仪器，并使他们有机会获得第一手经验复杂的信号/图像处理算法，计算方法，这里提出的新颖GW搜索是基于将aLIGO/Virgo亚阈值触发与使用Evryscope技术的同时光学成像相结合。 Evryscope以2分钟的节奏同时拍摄整个可观测的夜空。 然后，科学家们可以只选择那些在aLIGO/Virgo错误区域中出现的光学瞬态事件，这些事件与GW候选者出现在相同的2分钟窗口内-将GW的假警报概率降低了20，000倍以上。任何夜间GW事件。这可以提高边缘GW事件的检测置信度，从而增强GW检测量。 GW 1708187的光学对应物可以被目前的Evryscope探测到D ~260 Mpc，未来的Evryscope式系统可以探测到超过350 Mpc的距离。分析表明，未来的Evryscope式探测器网络将增加GW事件的数量检测到的一个因素~2-4相比，GW的观察。这样一个未来的网络将特别有利于GW源人口的研究和GW事件的宇宙学应用。这种方法还将覆盖光学光变曲线的最亮部分，并为所有这些事件提供角秒级定位，这将大大改善整个社区的EM后续响应，从而改善解释GW事件影响的天体物理背景。这里建议的工作是在aLIGO/Virgo O3中进行亚阈值GW搜索，使用Evryscope North和South设施进行同时光学覆盖。基于GW 170817的GW属性、光学对应物和本文所述分析的属性，这样的搜索可以使O3中确认的BNS合并数量增加约25%。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。