Gravitational Wave Astrophysics with LIGO: The Oregon Experimental Relativity Group

该奖项支持引力波探测器调试和表征以及数据分析方面的研究，并解决了 NSF“宇宙之窗”大构想的优先领域。俄勒冈州 LIGO 实验相对论小组寻找引力辐射。随着 2015 年 9 月通过观测黑洞合并发现引力波，以及 2017 年通过观测中子星合并产生引力波多信使天体物理学，LIGO 合作已成为 21 世纪基础物理、天文学、天体物理学和宇宙学领域科学的关键参与者。由于 LIGO 探测器测量时空中如此微小的扰动（距离比质子直径小 10,000 倍），因此它对环境扰动（例如地面运动或背景磁场）极其敏感。在此授予期间，LIGO 仪器将变得更加灵敏，这意味着已知天体物理源的探测率将会提高，并且可能会出现新的、以前未观测到的源。凭借这一奖项，该小组将开发所需的专业知识和工具包，以应对增强型 LIGO 仪器带来的数据质量和分析挑战。该团队的研究生将继续在这些发展中发挥关键作用。该团队将就这些令人兴奋的进展进行公开演讲。这包括每年为俄勒冈州高中科学教师组织一次研讨会，以便他们能够向学生传达最新的发现。该团队将进一步发展表征相关环境扰动与引力波数据耦合的能力。探测器的更高灵敏度以及相关的更高检测率使得这些发展势在必行。该团队开发了软件，可以在低延迟的情况下确定引力波候选者的潜在环境污染水平。这在数据质量报告中提供，可用于立即评估 O3 公开公共警报。这些工具相当初级，需要进一步开发才能实现可靠且准确的全自动流程的目标。需要不断改进仪器和环境注入的交付，以跟上 LIGO 干涉仪灵敏度的提高。研究生将进行环境注入研究和相关数据分析，以及引力波天体物理项目，涵盖伽玛暴、磁星耀斑和超新星等主题。虽然这些研究需要改进，以跟上 LIGO 灵敏度的提高和对来源更好的天体物理学理解的步伐，但在某些情况下需要新技术。所谓的亚阈值伽玛暴就是一个例子。 GRB/GW170817 充分说明了这一需求。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。

This award supports research in gravitational wave detector commissioning and characterization, as well as data analysis and it addresses the priority areas of NSF's "Windows on the Universe" Big Idea. A Search for Gravitational Radiation at LIGO Oregon Experimental Relativity Group. With the discovery of gravitational waves in September 2015 via the observation a merger of black holes, and the birth of multi-messenger astrophysics with gravitational waves in 2017 via the observation of a merger of neutron stars, the LIGO collaboration has become a key player in 21st century science in the areas of fundamental physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Because the LIGO detectors measure such tiny perturbations in spacetime -- distances 10,000 smaller than the diameter of a proton -- it is extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances, such as ground motion or background magnetic fields. During the period of this award, the LIGO instruments will be even more sensitive, meaning that the rate of detections of known astrophysical sources will be increased, and new, previously unobserved sources may appear. With this award, the group will develop the expertise and toolkits needed to meet the data quality and analysis challenges provided by the enhanced LIGO instruments. The team's graduate students will continue to play a critical role in these developments. The team will give public presentations on these exciting developments. This includes the organization of a yearly workshop for Oregon high school science teachers, so that they can convey the latest findings to their students.The team will further develop the ability to characterize the coupling of relevant environmental disturbances to gravitational-wave data. The greater sensitivity of the detectors, along with the associated higher detection rates make these developments imperative. The team has developed software to determine potential environmental contamination levels to gravitational wave candidates in low latency. This is provided in the data quality reports made available for immediate evaluation for the O3 open public alerts. These tools are fairly rudimentary and further development will be needed to achieve the goal of a fully automatized process which is reliable and accurate. Continued improvement of the instrumentation and delivery of environmental injections will be needed to keep pace with the improved sensitivity of the LIGO interferometers. Graduate students will undertake environmental injection studies and associated data analyses, as well as gravitational wave astrophysics projects, covering the topics of GRBs, magnetar flares, and supernovae. While refinements will be needed for these studies to keep pace with the improved LIGO sensitivities and better astrophysical understanding of the sources, in some cases new techniques will be needed. One example for this is for the so-called sub-threshold GRBs. The need for this was spectacularly illustrated with GRB/GW170817.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.