Scalable Cyberinfrastructure for Early Warning Gravitational Wave Detections

天文设施的最新进展打开了观察宇宙的新窗口，使观测能力超越了传统望远镜。联合观测将望远镜、中微子探测器和包括美国国家科学基金会支持的LIGO天文台在内的新型引力波探测器结合在一起，揭示了目前仍是一个谜的宇宙的各个方面。就在最近，来自两颗密度极高的中子星碰撞的信号——被称为GW170817的合并——被传统望远镜和引力波探测器探测到。该事件首先在引力波中被探测到，两秒钟后在伽马射线中被探测到，10小时后在光学、紫外线、红外线中被探测到，更晚的是在x射线和无线电波中被探测到。从这个单一的事件中，世界了解到一些短而硬的伽马射线爆发表明中子星合并，这些合并可能是元素周期表中许多元素（如金和铂）的起源，重力和光以相同的速度传播，引力波确实可以测量宇宙膨胀的速度。尽管我们了解了很多，GW170817还是给世界留下了许多问题。后来形成了什么物体？是另一颗中子星吗？是黑洞吗？为什么与GW170817有关的伽马射线暴不同于其他观测到的暴？回答这些问题，并定期进行这类联合观察，需要大量的计算和软件基础设施（网络基础设施）。该项目建议开发必要的网络基础设施，以便比目前可能的更早地向其他天文设施发出引力事件警报，使研究人员能够收集尽可能多的关于这些新型天体事件的数据。该项目将通过为中子星合并的流预警搜索提供亚秒级数据传输来加强LIGO的流数据传输。大量的自动化监控和反馈将确保整个系统在没有人工干预的情况下运行。该项目将利用美国国家科学基金会在实时引力波分析网络基础设施方面的现有投资，并将显著增强数据传输和检测自动化层，这是目前的瓶颈和故障模式。利用引力波为机器人望远镜提供早期预警将大大提高LIGO数据的科学实用性，并显著促进多信使天体物理学。该提案将促进美国国家科学基金会十大构想中的两个：“利用数据革命”、“宇宙之窗：多信使天体物理学时代”的科学进步。该项目由计算机和信息科学与工程理事会的高级网络基础设施办公室支持。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。

Recent advances in astronomical facilities have opened new windows on the universe that extend observing capabilities beyond conventional telescopes. Joint observations that combine telescopes, neutrino detectors, and new gravitational wave detectors including the NSF-supported LIGO Observatory are revealing aspects of the universe that are presently a mystery. Just recently, signals from the collision of two extremely dense neutron stars - a merger known as GW170817 - were detected by both conventional telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. The event was detected first in gravitational waves, two seconds later in gamma rays, after 10 hours in optical, ultraviolet, infrared, and much later in x-ray and radio waves. From this single event, the world learned that some short-hard gamma ray bursts indicate neutron star mergers, that these mergers might be the origin of many elements in the periodic table such as gold and platinum, that gravity and light travel at the same speed, and that gravitational waves really could measure how fast the universe is expanding. Despite what was learned, GW170817 left the world with many questions. What object was formed afterward? Was it another neutron star? Was it a black hole? Why was the gamma ray burst associated with GW170817 unlike anything else that had been observed? Answering these questions, and conducting these kinds of joint observations on a regular basis, requires significant computing and software infrastructure (cyberinfrastructure).The project proposes to develop the cyberinfrastructure necessary to give earlier gravitational event alerts to other astronomical facilities than is currently possible, allowing researchers to collect as much data as possible about these new types of celestial events. This project will fortify the streaming data delivery of LIGO by producing sub-second data delivery to a streaming early warning search for neutron star mergers. Substantial automated monitoring and feedback will ensure the entire system operates without manual intervention. The project will capitalize upon existing NSF investments in cyber-infrastructure for real-time gravitational wave analysis and will significantly augment the data delivery and automation layer for detections which is presently a bottleneck and failure mode. Using gravitational waves to provide an early warning for robotic telescopes will significantly enhance the scientific utility of LIGO data and significantly facilitate multi-messenger astrophysics. This proposal will promote the progress of science in two of the National Science Foundation's 10 Big Ideas: "Harnessing the Data Revolution" "Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics". This project is supported by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.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.