Moving Toward Gravitational Wave Detection in Advanced LIGO

索尔森在锡拉丘兹的研究小组20年来一直致力于帮助开发LIGO引力波探测器，并利用它所做的观测为引力波的搜索做出贡献。在接下来的三年里，该小组将开发一种新技术，以揭示LIGO数据中过度(非高斯)干扰或“故障”的原因。他们将开发一个数据挖掘系统，以寻找受到干扰的时间与一系列控制和监测信号的值之间的联系。这将允许探索控制系统中的误差信号饱和引起对环境干扰的额外敏感性的可能性，以及可能导致控制通道和引力波输出之间的时变耦合的其他机制。该项目的成功将使更有信心地探测到引力波信号，并将为未来与公众共享LIGO数据铺平道路。锡拉丘兹小组还将致力于改进高级LIGO对中子星双星合并产生的引力波的搜索。将开发一条专门的管道，以充分利用这一信号的所有特殊特征。这将提高高级LIGO探测这一关键科学目标信号的能力。当我们成功探测到引力波时，我们将能够以一种全新的方式探索宇宙。它将使我们能够对黑洞进行前所未有的观测，特别是检查它们的行为是否如爱因斯坦的广义相对论所预测的那样。引力波探测技术的发展导致了美国在激光、真空系统和精密机械等方面的技术能力的进步。索尔森在锡拉丘兹的团队参与了许多级别的正规和非正规教育，包括本科生和研究生培训以及面向普通公众的宣传。该小组还与卡迪夫大学的哈里·柯林斯教授一起参与了科学社会学的研究。

Saulson's research group at Syracuse has been working for two decades to help develop the LIGO gravitational wave detector and to contribute to the search for gravitational waves with the observations that it has made. In the coming three years, the group will develop a new technique to uncover the causes of excess (non-Gaussian) disturbances, or 'glitches',in LIGO's data. They will develop a data-mining system to look for the connection between times subject to disturbances and the values of a wide array of control and monitoring signals. This will allow the exploration of the possibility that saturation of error signals in control systems causes extra sensitivity to environmental disturbances, as well as other mechanisms that can cause time-varying couplings between control channels and the gravitational wave output. Success in this project will allow more confident detections of gravitational wave signals, and will ease the path to future sharing of LIGO data with the public. The Syracuse group will also work to improve Advanced LIGO's search for gravitational waves from the coalescence of a neutron star binary. A specially-focused pipeline will be developed to take full advantage of all of the special features of this signal. This will improve Advanced LIGO's ability to detect signals from this key science target.When we have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves, we will be able to explore the universe in a completely new way. It will enable us to make unprecedented observations of black holes, and in particular to check whether they behave as predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Development of gravitational wave detection techniques has led to advances in U.S. technological capability in lasers, vacuum systems, and precision mechanics, among others. Saulson's group at Syracuse is engaged in formal and informal education at many levels, including undergraduate and graduate training and outreach to the general public. The group also participates in research on the sociology of science, in conjunction with Prof. Harry Collins of Cardiff University.