Gravitational Wave Transient Astrophysics with LIGO

引力波是100年前爱因斯坦广义相对论预言的时空曲率的微小振荡，对引力波的直接探测是引力物理学的一个突破性事件。2015年9月14日，激光干涉引力波天文台（LIGO）首次直接探测到引力波，在这种情况下，引力波是由距离地球近14亿光年的两个黑洞碰撞产生的。从那以后，LIGO和欧洲的Virgo探测器又探测到了几次黑洞碰撞。然后，在2017年8月17日，LIGO和处女座探测到一种新型信号，来自两颗中子星的合并，与伽马射线暴相吻合。70多个天文台在几乎所有可能的电磁波长范围内参与了这一探测的后续工作，现在可以获得关于这一独特事件的丰富信息。引力波启用、多信使天文学的时代已经正式开始。该奖项支持乔治亚理工学院的LIGO关键研究，对LIGO数据中的引力波瞬态信号进行探测、表征和天体物理学解释，这是一个新的科学前沿，旨在更深入地了解宇宙。该奖项将受益于PI和co-PI以及佐治亚理工学院相对论天体物理学中心的一个协同团队的长期合作，其中包括计算天体物理学、宇宙学、粒子天体物理学、天文学、计算学院和亚特兰大的一个强大的外展计划，并通过与LIGO科学合作的新关系得到加强，以及对多样性和女性在STEM中的作用的坚定承诺。该奖项支持乔治亚理工学院的一个活跃的LIGO小组，他们的工作对LIGO任务至关重要：1)参与lsc -室女座爆发（LSC-Virgo Burst）全天、形态无关的引力瞬变搜索，对广泛的特征敏感，包括核心坍缩超新星、中子星和/或黑洞双星系统的合并和中子星振荡，包括表征LIGO数据以实现科学发现，提供必要的数据质量信息，以清理数据集和排除误报；并尽早识别数据质量问题，以便在工具中减轻这些问题。2)在搜索和解释来自各种天体物理源的信号时，特别是在强引力场处于峰值和数值相对论提供的信息最具影响力的源中，如中等质量黑洞合并、奇异源的后续模拟和波形模型的一致性测试中，将一般解析和数值相对论波形整合起来。凭借这一奖项，佐治亚理工学院团队将为LIGO科学合作（LSC）的核心科学做出贡献，利用现有资源和专业知识，在激发求知欲和探索新方法的同时，使先进的LIGO科学成为最高优先级。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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。

The direct detection of gravitational waves, tiny oscillations of the curvature of space-time that were predicted 100 years ago by Einstein's theory of General Relativity, was a groundbreaking event for gravitational physics. On September 14, 2015, The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, which in this case were produced by the collision of two black holes nearly 1.4 billion light years away from Earth. Since then, several more black hole collisions have been detected by LIGO and its European counterpart, Virgo. Then, on August 17, 2017 LIGO and Virgo detected a new type of signal, from the coalescence of two neutron stars, in coincidence with a gamma ray burst. Over 70 observatories have participated in following up this detection in almost every possible electromagnetic wavelength, and a richness of information is now available on this unique event. The era of gravitational-wave enabled, multi-messenger astronomy has officially begun. This award supports critical LIGO research at the Georgia Institute of Technology, for the detection, characterization and astrophysical interpretation of gravitational wave transient signals in LIGO data, at a new frontier in science that aims a deeper understanding of the universe. The award will benefit from the long term collaboration of the PI and co-PI and a synergistic team at the Georgia Tech Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, with experts in computational astrophysics, cosmology, particle astrophysics, astronomy, the college of computing and a strong outreach program in Atlanta, enhanced by the new ties to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and a firm commitment to diversity and the role of women in STEM.The award supports an active LIGO group at Georgia Tech, with work on two topics of critical importance to the LIGO mission: 1) Participation in the LSC-Virgo Burst all-sky, morphology-independent search for gravitational transients, sensitive to a wide range of signatures, including core-collapse supernovae, coalescence of neutron star and/or black hole binary systems and neutron star oscillations, including characterization of LIGO data to enable scientific discovery, to deliver the data quality information necessary to clean the data sets and veto false positives, and to identify data quality issues early enough that they can be mitigated in the instruments. 2) Integration of generic analytical and numerical relativity waveforms in searches and interpretations of signals from a variety of astrophysical sources, especially in those sources where the strong field of gravity is at its peak and information provided by numerical relativity is at its most influential, such as intermediate mass black hole mergers, follow-up simulations of exotic sources, and consistency tests of waveform models. With this award, the Georgia Tech group will contribute to core science of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), capitalizing on existing resources and expertise, and enabling advanced LIGO science of highest priority while stimulating intellectual curiosity and exploring novel approaches.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.