WoU-MMA: Inference About Gravitational Wave Sources and Source Populations in the Era of Perpetual Discovery

美国国家科学基金会的激光干涉引力波天文台（LIGO）发现了第一个引力波，开始了对宇宙理解的革命。 这些引力波是爱因斯坦的空间和时间模型广义相对论的必然结果，该模型预测快速加速的物体将在时空中产生涟漪，携带有关碰撞黑洞或中子星等最具能量的天体物理现象的清晰信息。大量持续的投资使引力波网络的灵敏度迅速提高，积累了能够在整个宇宙中对此类物体进行首次普查的事件。这次普查发现了以前从未见过的系统和物理学，挑战了关于这些物体如何形成的理论，同时实现了变革性的多信使科学。 在LIGO的下一次观测运行中将探测到数百个双星系统，这提供了独特的机会，但也带来了挑战。该奖项支持正在进行的工作，以加强这一普查，重点是解开新的人口和新的天体物理学的签名。 更广泛地说，它支持团队对关键任务和LIGO科学合作组织的出版物的持续贡献。 RIT小组的贡献将集中在解释来源，无论是孤立的和集体的普查，参数和人口推断的一部分。 在一个主要目标中，该小组将专注于增强和操作两个现有的网络基础设施，分别是参数和人口推断代码RIFT和PopModels。 这些改进将提高针对特殊事件和以前未识别的天体物理现象进行快速和低成本源和总体参数推断的能力。 与此同时，该小组将评估几个最诱人的近期发现候选者的相关天体物理模型，强调低质量或偏心双星带来的机会。该奖项将通过其核心科学目标受益于RIT计算相对论和引力中心的强大协同作用，该团队将受益于联邦政府支持的相对论天体物理学其他举措的深厚专业知识。 该奖项将支持STEM劳动力的培训，包括代表性不足的群体，以及与REU和高中学生的倡议。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The discovery of the first gravitational waves by NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) began a revolution in understanding of the universe. These gravitational waves are the inevitable consequence of Einstein's model of space and time, General Relativity, which predicts that rapidly accelerating objects will produce ripples in spacetime, carrying unobscured information about the most energetic astrophysical phenomena like colliding black holes or neutron stars. Substantial ongoing investment has allowed the gravitational wave network to increase rapidly in sensitivity, accumulating events that enable the first census of such objects throughout the Universe. This census has identified never before seen systems and physics, challenging theories about how these objects form while enabling transformative multi-messenger science. The hundreds of binary systems that will be detected during LIGO's next observing run provide unique opportunities but also challenges. This award supports ongoing work to enhance this census, focusing on disentangling signatures of new populations and new astrophysics. More broadly, it supports the team's ongoing contributions to mission-critical tasks and publications of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. The RIT group's contributions will focus on interpreting sources both in isolation and collectively as part of the census, parameter and population inference. In one major thrust, the group will focus on enhancing and operating two existing pieces of cyberinfrastructure, parameter and population inference codes RIFT and PopModels, respectively. These improvements will enhance the capability to perform rapid and low-cost source and population parameter inference, targeting exceptional events and previously unidentified astrophysical phenomena. In parallel, the group will assess pertinent astrophysical models for several of the most tantalizing candidates for near-term discovery, emphasizing opportunities enabled by low-mass or eccentric binaries. The award will benefit from strong synergies at the RIT Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation through its core scientific objectives, where the team benefits from deep expertise from other federally supported initiatives in relativistic astrophysics. The award will support training of the STEM workforce, including underrepresented groups, as well as initiatives with REU and high-school students.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.