Participation in LIGO's Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts

LIGO现在已经实现了其设计敏感度，并开始了一项数据运行，旨在从其两个站点收集一年的重合数据。锡拉丘兹大学的引力波研究小组打算参与LIGO对引力波爆发的搜索。锡拉丘兹团队的研究将主要集中在确保地球上的毛刺不会被误认为真正的引力波信号。他们将扩展该团队和其他人之前的工作，研究环境信号耦合到干涉仪的方法，学习在突发耦合事件发生时识别它们，并从数据中消除这种贡献。他们还将寻找干涉仪输出与记录的许多诊断信号之间的相关性，以便可以识别错误信号的任何原因，无论是来自外部还是内部来源，并排除在进一步考虑之外。此外，它们将帮助验证干涉仪的校准，重点放在与确定猝发信号强度有关的校准方面。P.I.将继续担任LIGO科学合作的领导人，在2007年3月结束的本届任期内继续担任发言人。在这一角色中，他将专注于与其他国家的同事合作，帮助发展确认和充分利用未来引力波发现所需的全球网络。对引力波爆发的搜索可能是LIGO惊人发现的最大可能性。因此，旨在区分真正的引力波爆发和虚假迹象的研究，可能在确定一项重要发现的有效性方面发挥关键作用。在从事这项工作的同时，锡拉丘兹集团将继续其培训本科生、毕业生和博士后的悠久历史，其中相当大一部分人在离开集团后继续为该领域做出进一步的重要贡献。该小组还将继续开发一套演示LIGO实验物理技术的教学实验室练习，并将把这些实验练习与P.I.在德克萨斯大学布朗斯维尔分校举办的引力波天文学暑期班以及锡拉丘兹大学本科生的相关主题讲座结合使用。P.I.还将继续开展一系列外展活动，包括主办一个向本科生讲授广义相对论的研讨会，以及美国物理教师协会的一次会议。

LIGO has now achieved its design sensitivity, and has begun a data run intended to collect one year's worth of coincident data from its two sites. The gravitational wave research group at Syracuse University intends to participate in LIGO's search for bursts of gravitational waves. The Syracuse team's research will focus primarily on ensuring that terrestrial glitches are not mistaken for true gravitational wave signals. They will extend previous work by the group and others to study ways in which environmental signals couple into the interferometers, to learn to recognize burst-like coupling events when they occur, and to eliminate such contributions from the data. They will also look for correlation between the interferometer output and the many diagnostic signals that are recorded, so that any cause of a false signal, whether from an external or an internal source, can be recognized and excluded from further consideration. In addition, they will help to validate the calibration of the interferometers, focusing on aspects of the calibration relevant to determining the strengths of burst-like signals. The P.I. will continue as a leader of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, remaining as Spokesperson through his present term which ends March 2007. In that role, among other things, he will focus on working with colleagues in other countries to help develop the global network necessary for confirmation and full exploitation of future gravitational wavediscoveries. The search for gravitational wave bursts holds perhaps the biggest possibility for surprising discoveries by LIGO. Thus, research aimed at distinguishing genuine bursts of gravitational waves from spurious indications could play a crucial role in establishing the validity of an important discovery. While engaged in this work, the Syracuse group will continue its long history of training undergraduates, graduates, and postdocs, a significant proportion of whom have gone on to make further important contributions to the field after they have left the group. The group will also continue the development of a set of teaching lab exercises that illustrate the experimental physics techniques of LIGO, and will use those lab exercises in conjunction with the lectures on related topics offered by the P.I. at the summer school on gravitational wave astronomy run by the University of Texas, Brownsville, as well as for undergraduates at Syracuse University. The P.I. will also continue a spectrum of outreach activities, including hosting a workshop on teaching general relativity to undergraduates, in conjunction with a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers.