NSF-BSF: New Data Analysis Techniques for a New Era in GW Astrophysics

自从美国国家科学基金会的LIGO天文台首次探测到引力波以来，引力波天体物理学已经成为物理学和天文学中最具活力的领域之一。在接下来的几年里，LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA （LVK）合作将继续提高他们观测的灵敏度，发现新的黑洞和中子星合并事件，并将他们的数据公开。该奖项旨在改进用于分析引力波数据并利用它进行天体物理推断的技术。改进的分析管道将应用于即将到来的数据，以了解产生这些引力波源的天体物理过程，并在非常极端的情况下研究引力动力学。虽然我们可以看到这些合并在我们的宇宙中发生，但我们仍然不明白这些双星系统是如何形成的，关于黑洞和中子星的许多特性仍然存在疑问。根据该奖项产生的研究成果将在科学界广泛传播，并将努力通过公开讲座和其他外联活动使非科学家也能获得这些成果。该奖项旨在改进用于分析来自LVK合作的引力波数据的技术，并利用它进行天体物理推断。改进的分析管道将应用于即将到来的数据，以了解产生引力波源的天体物理过程，并研究极端状态下的引力动力学。特别是，该奖项将提供LVK数据的独立分析和天体物理学解释：该团队将使用参数估计代码齿轮，由于实现了一组新的坐标以及扩展到更高模式的相对分组算法，因此效率极高，可以进行各种新颖的研究。2. 他们将结合他们的参数研究结果，包括他们独立管道发现的事件，以设置对GW源总体特性的限制。3. 他们将对他们的独立搜索管道进行几项改进，从处理噪音和所谓的故障的技术改进到增加包括更高模式和进动作为搜索的一部分的能力。4. 他们将利用所谓的辅助信道的信息来改善低频的h(t)。LIGO最近发布了GW170814附近的辅助信道，他们打算研究不同的技术来改善低频“控制噪声”。5. 他们将加强目前的工作，主要集中在数据分析，以及一些与黑洞周围潮汐耗散有关的理论工作，以及改进现有波形的努力。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。

Since the first detection of gravitational waves by NSF's LIGO observatory, gravitational wave Astrophysics has become one of the most dynamic fields of physics and astronomy. In the next few years the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) collaboration will continue to improve the sensitivity of their observations, discover new black hole and neutron star merger events and make their data public. This award aims to improve the techniques used to analyze gravitational wave data and make astrophysical inferences using it. The improved analysis pipelines will be applied to upcoming data in order to learn about the astrophysical processes that created these sources of gravitational waves and study the gravitational dynamics in a very extreme regime. Although we can see these mergers occurring across our universe we still do not understand how these binary systems formed and questions remain about many properties of the black holes and neutron stars in them. The research produced under this award will be disseminated widely across the scientific community and efforts will be made to make it accessible to non-scientists through public lectures and other outreach activities.This award aims to improve the techniques used to analyze Gravitational Wave data from the LVK collaboration and make astrophysical inferences using it. The improved analysis pipelines will be applied to upcoming data in order to learn about the astrophysical processes that created the Gravitational Wave sources and study the gravitational dynamics in a very extreme regime. In particular, this award will provide an independent analysis and astrophysical interpretation of the LVK data: 1. The team will use the parameter estimation code cogwheel which is extremely efficient due to the implementation of a new set of coordinates as well as the relative binning algorithm extended for higher modes to do a variety of novel studies that its efficiency enables. 2. They will combine the results of their parameter study, including from events found by their independent pipeline to set constraints on the properties of the population of GW sources. 3. They will make several improvements to their independent search pipeline ranging from technical ones related to their treatment of the noise and of so-called glitches to adding the capability of including higher modes and precession as part of the search. 4. They will work on improving h(t) at low frequency by using information from the so-called auxiliary channels. LIGO recently released the auxiliary channels around GW170814 and they intend to investigate different techniques to improve the low frequency “control noise”. 5. They will augment their current efforts, which are mainly centered around data analysis, with some more theoretical work related to tidal dissipation around black holes as well as efforts to improve existing waveforms.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.