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仪引力波天文台（LIGO）首次发现引力波，开启了一场理解宇宙的革命。这些引力波是爱因斯坦时空模型——广义相对论——的必然结果。广义相对论预测，快速加速的物体会在时空中产生涟漪，携带着关于最具能量的天体物理现象（如黑洞碰撞或中子星碰撞）的未知信息。大量持续的投资使引力波网络的灵敏度迅速提高，积累的事件使人们能够对整个宇宙中的此类物体进行首次普查。这次普查确定了以前从未见过的系统和物理，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，这为我们提供了独特的机会，但也带来了挑战。该奖项支持正在进行的加强人口普查的工作，重点是解开新种群和新天体物理学的特征。更广泛地说，它支持团队对LIGO科学合作组织的关键任务和出版物的持续贡献。RIT小组的贡献将集中于单独或集体地解释资料来源，作为普查、参数和人口推断的一部分。在一项主要任务中，该小组将重点加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。这些改进将提高执行快速和低成本的源和种群参数推断的能力，目标是特殊事件和以前未确定的天体物理现象。与此同时，该小组将为近期发现的几个最诱人的候选天体评估相关的天体物理模型，强调低质量或偏心双星所带来的机会。该奖项将受益于RIT计算相对论和引力中心通过其核心科学目标的强大协同作用，该团队将受益于其他联邦政府支持的相对论天体物理学计划的深厚专业知识。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REU和高中生的倡议。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。

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.