Oregon Experimental Relativity Group: Monitoring, Measuring and Mitigating Environmental Influences on LIGO

2016年2月11日，美国国家科学基金会的激光干涉引力波天文台（LIGO）宣布探测到黑洞合并，引力波天文学的时代开始了。第一次发现导致了诺贝尔奖，并有力地证实了广义相对论的预测，但它也打开了一扇新的宇宙之窗，有望有更多的发现。该奖项将通过监测和测量环境对LIGO探测器的影响来帮助这些发现。通过帮助提高LIGO的性能，这项研究将有助于人类对宇宙基本方面的理解，这一奋进被广泛认为具有内在的社会效益。公众对LIGO发现的广泛兴趣激发了对STEM的兴趣，这也是一种社会效益。获奖者将与LIGO现场员工合作，升级和改进传感器阵列（地震计，加速度计，磁力计等）。以及注入设备（用于注入环境信号的设备），使得该系统可以用于测量耦合和检查检测。获奖者将在下一次观测运行（O4）临近时帮助测量环境与LIGO探测器的耦合。该奖项反映了NSF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。

On February 11, 2016, the era of gravitational wave astronomy began with NSF's Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announcement of the detection of a black hole merger. This first detection led to a Nobel prize and spectacularly confirmed predictions of general relativity, but it also opened a new window on the universe, promising many more discoveries. This award will help make these discoveries by contributing to the monitoring and measuring of environmental influences on the LIGO detectors. By helping improve LIGO’s performance, this research will contribute to human understanding of fundamental aspects of the cosmos, an endeavor that is widely believed to have intrinsic societal benefits. The broad public interest in LIGO discoveries excites interest in STEM, also a societal benefit. The awardees will work with LIGO site employees to upgrade and improve the sensor arrays (seismometers, accelerometers, magnetometers, etc.) and the injection equipment (equipment for injecting environmental signals) so that the system can be used for measuring coupling and vetting detections. The awardees will help measure the coupling of the environment to the LIGO detectors as the next observing run (O4) 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.