Instrument Development and Data Analysis for LIGO

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The last two years were very exciting in gravitational wave astronomy, with the first several detections of gravitational waves with LIGO detectors of black holes and neutron star binary systems. The GW170817 detection of colliding neutron stars with electromagnetic counterparts on the spectrum of electromagnetic waves, from gamma-rays to radio waves, has started the era of multi-messenger astronomy with gravity being one of the messengers; the LSU group has been a critical contributor to these discoveries. The group's activities in the next years will focus on aspects of improvement of the Advanced LIGO detectors and the characterization of data from the Advanced LIGO interferometer. These efforts are fully integrated with those of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), and are especially integrated with the activities of the LIGO Livingston Observatory, since that Observatory is located only 30 miles from the LSU campus. In doing its research, the group will train students and a postdoc who will add to the quality and diversity of the STEM workforce, as well as share the research with the general public.The LSU group will pursue research activities in two main topics, all coordinated with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and key to the improvement of detection rates of gravitational waves with the Advanced LIGO detectors. The first topic is Advanced LIGO detector improvement and application to future designs; the group will help diagnosing and improving the detector's noise in the frequency domain due to higher laser power. The group will model the performance of the system, compare models with actual performance, and then apply the models and the experience to the conceptual development of such systems for upgraded detectors. The second topic is characterizing data from Advanced LIGO detector; the group will identify instrumental artifacts, in particular those related to the group's expertise on calibration and scattering sources. The group will eliminate the cause of the transients when possible, and if not create data analysis algorithms for minimizing the influence of such artifacts in the search for astrophysical signals in LIGO data.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.