NANOGrav@UPRM: Growing and Characterizing the NANOGrav Gravitational-Wave Detector

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。该项目与波多黎各马亚圭兹大学(UPRM)和北美引力波纳赫兹天文台(NANOGrav)合作，这是一个由数十个机构组成的国际科学合作项目。目标是(I)通过促进拉美裔/拉丁裔本科生在物理学方面的研究和教育来增加美国劳动力的多样性，以及(Ii)推进NANOGrav的几个关键科学目标。这些活动旨在留住物理学生，培训他们从事前沿的物理研究，并通过一系列教育和密切监督的研究项目来激励他们进入研究生院。NANOGrav使用一个星系大小的脉冲星探测器，以原子钟的精度发射射电脉冲。这些脉冲的到达时间是用世界领先的射电望远镜在美国和加拿大记录的。NANOGrav搜索由时空中的涟漪引起的到达时间的相关变化，这些涟漪被称为引力波，预计将由合并星系核心的极大质量黑洞发出。几名NANOGrav资深科学家将对UPRM学生进行各种数据质量和分析方法以及模拟技术和天体物理解释方面的培训。除了培养人才和培养少数民族的参与外，NANOGrav还将通过扩大和表征脉冲星阵列直接从研究中受益。正是这种所谓的脉冲星定时阵列将探测引力波并确定其来源，从而有助于我们理解宇宙的历史和我们在其中的位置。实施的是一种全方位的方法，学生将沉浸在远程教育计划中，在当地高中展示NANOGrav的研究活动，参加在当地和美国本土组织的研讨会，参加研究项目，并在NANOGrav机构停留数周，为日常持续的研究活动做出贡献。该奖项与波多黎各大学(UPRM)马亚格斯校区物理系与北美引力波纳赫兹天文台(NANOGrav)物理前沿中心合作，以推进几个关键的NANOGrav科学目标，并增加少数族裔在物理领域的参与和保留。NANOGrav的任务是使用脉冲星定时阵列作为银河系规模的探测器来探测和表征合并超大质量黑洞双星产生的低频引力波。低频引力波探测和表征将提供有关星系合并率、超大质量黑洞质量和导致黑洞合并的过程的信息。阵列的单个脉冲星的特征进而产生关于例如中子星质量、状态方程、人口和天体测量数据、广义相对论检验、星际电子分布、太阳风特性和脉冲星发射机制的信息。UPRM的本科生将参与与NANOGrav使命相关的研究项目，在UPRM指导，以及在几个NANOGrav机构远程和现场指导。这项研究将包括寻找新的脉冲星、数据质量检查、脉冲星模拟开发以及表征脉冲星的发射特性。这些学生将参加UPRM、阿雷西博天文台和其他NANOGrav地点的研讨会，以及参加在大陆举行的NANOGrav一般会议和培训会议。计划的研究活动侧重于发展和表征脉冲星定时阵列。阵列的灵敏度与脉冲星的数量成正比，因此寻找新的脉冲星是至关重要的。还观察到，一些脉冲星改变了发射属性，这限制了它们在阵列中的时间分辨率和有用性，因此研究脉冲星发射和伴随的星际介质效应将为NANOGrav科学做出宝贵贡献。这一奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This project partners the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez (UPRM) with the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), an international scientific collaboration comprising several dozen institutions. The goals are (i) to increase the U.S. workforce diversity by promoting research and education of Hispanic/Latino undergraduate students in physics, and (ii) to advance several key NANOGrav science goals. The activities are tailored to retain physics students, to train them in forefront physics research, and to motivate them to enter graduate school by way of a series of educational and closely supervised research projects. NANOGrav uses a galaxy-sized detector of pulsars that emit radio pulses with atomic-clock precision. The arrival times of those pulses are recorded with world-leading radio telescopes across the U.S. and Canada. NANOGrav searches for correlated changes in the arrival times, induced by ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves, that are expected to be emitted by extremely massive black holes at the cores of merging galaxies. UPRM students will be trained in a variety of data quality and analysis methods, as well as simulation techniques and astrophysical interpretation by several NANOGrav senior scientists. Besides nurturing the talent and fostering the participation of minorities, NANOGrav will directly benefit from the research by expanding and characterizing the array of pulsars. It is this so-called pulsar timing array that will detect gravitational waves and characterize their sources and hence contribute to our understanding of the history of the Universe and our place in it. A holistic approach is implemented, where the students will be immersed in remote educational programs, present NANOGrav's research activities at local high schools, participate in workshops organized locally and on the U.S. mainland, take part in research projects, and spend several weeks at a NANOGrav institution contributing to daily ongoing research activities.This award partners the Physics Department at the Mayagüez campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPRM) with the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center to advance several key NANOGrav science goals and to increase the participation and retention of minorities in the field of physics. NANOGrav’s mission is to detect and characterize low-frequency gravitational waves from merging supermassive black hole binaries using a pulsar timing array as a galactic-scale detector. Low-frequency gravitational-wave detection and characterization will provide information on galaxy merger rates, supermassive black hole masses, and processes leading to black hole coalescence. Characterization of individual pulsars of the array in turn yields information on, e.g., neutron star masses, equations of state, populations, and astrometric data; tests of general relativity; interstellar electron distributions; solar wind properties; and pulsar emission mechanisms. Undergraduate students from UPRM will be involved in research projects of relevance to NANOGrav's mission, mentored at UPRM as well as remotely and onsite at several NANOGrav institutions. The research will involve searching for new pulsars, data quality checks, pulsar simulation development, and characterizing pulsar emission properties. The students will participate in workshops at UPRM, the Arecibo Observatory, and other NANOGrav sites, as well as to attend general NANOGrav and training meetings on the mainland. The planned research activities are focused on growing and characterizing the pulsar timing array. The sensitivity of the array is proportional to the number of pulsars and hence finding new pulsars is of fundamental importance. It has also been observed that some pulsars change emission properties, which limits their timing resolution and usefulness in the array and therefore an investigation of pulsar emission and accompanying interstellar medium effects will provide a valuable contribution to NANOGrav science.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.