A Search for Gravitational Radiation at LIGO: Oregon Experimental Relativity Group

随着2015年9月引力波的发现，LIGO合作组织开始了用引力波探索宇宙的新的科学冒险。俄勒冈研究小组在这一发现中发挥了重要作用。它负责测量潜在的地面对引力波信号的潜在贡献的大型传感器阵列，例如地面运动、环境磁场或射频场、噪声等。这项工作将在接下来的三年里继续发挥关键作用，因为LIGO预计将探测到许多引力波信号，这些信号可能来自各种各样的天体物理源。事实上，俄勒冈研究小组的另一个重要贡献是寻找一类这样的源——与伽马射线暴有关的源。这一发现引起了公众的极大兴趣，反映了公众对探索宇宙的兴趣。这项研究成果的发表已经促进了其他科学学科的发展，尤其是天文学。最后，对从事该项目的研究生和博士后的教育将促进技术劳动力的发展。俄勒冈州的研究小组一直是LIGO探测器准备工作及其相关科学项目的关键参与者。从最初的LIGO最早的数据采集开始，该小组在探测器背景噪声的表征和涉及相关天体物理信号的数据分析技术方面做出了重要贡献。具体来说，在仪器方面，他们已经学会了如何用引力波探测来描述所有已知环境干扰源的耦合特性，并监测这些耦合。这里，“环境”对应的是除引力波以外的任何外部影响。这使得LIGO能够对这些干扰对假定的引力波探测的潜在贡献做出明确的陈述。在数据分析方面，俄勒冈小组率先开展了一项科学计划，寻找与天体物理事件相关的瞬态引力波信号，这些信号在时间和天空位置上都有很好的定位，是潜在的GW源。这些外部“触发器”包括来自grb的伽马射线，来自磁星的x射线爆发，以及来自核心坍缩超新星的中微子。

With the discovery of gravitational waves in September 2015, the LIGO collaboration is beginning a new scientific adventure by the exploration of the cosmos with gravitational waves. The Oregon group played an important role in the discovery. It is responsible for the large array of sensors which measure potential underlying terrestrial contributions to the gravitational wave signals, for example from ground motion, ambient magnetic or radio-frequency fields, acoustic noise, etc. This work will continue to be crucial over the next three years of this award, as LIGO expects to detect many gravitational-wave signals, perhaps arising from a wide variety of astrophysical sources. In fact, the other key contribution of the Oregon group is the search for one class of such sources - those associated with gamma-ray bursts. The discovery sparked tremendous public interest, reflecting the public appetite for the exploration of our universe. The publication of the scientific results from this research program has already contributed to advancement of other scientific disciplines, most notably astronomy. Finally, the education of the graduate students and postdoctoral associates working on the project will advance the technical workforce.The Oregon group has been a key player in developing the readiness of the LIGO detectors and its associated scientific program. Starting with the earliest data taking with initial LIGO, the group has made key contributions in the areas of characterization of detector background noise and in the data analysis techniques involving associated astrophysical signals. Specifically, on the instrument side, they have learned how to characterize the coupling of all known sources of environmental disturbances with gravitational-wave detection, and to monitor these couplings. Here, "environment" corresponds to any external influence other than gravitational waves. This allows LIGO to make clear statements about the potential contributions of such disturbances to putative gravitational-wave detections. On the data analysis side, the Oregon group has pioneered the science program which searches for transient gravitational-wave signals associated with astrophysical events which are well localized in time and sky position, and which are potential GW sources. These external "triggers" include gamma rays from GRBs, x-ray bursts from magnetars, and neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae.