Advanced LIGO Operations Support

我们对整个宇宙的大部分知识都来自于科学家所说的“电磁辐射”——从无线电波到红外辐射和光，再到x射线和伽马射线。这在2015年9月14日发生了戏剧性的变化，我们第一次直接探测到时空中的涟漪，即引力波。观测到由两个黑洞碰撞产生的第一个引力波信号（GW150914），开启了天文学的新篇章。我们已经发现了双黑洞，并且了解到在宇宙的某个地方每15分钟就有两个重恒星质量的黑洞相撞。事实上，自2015年9月以来，我们已经观测到9次这样的碰撞，我们目前正在分析一组包含大约40个候选信号的新数据。2017年8月17日，我们观测到了GW170817，这是第一次双中子星的合并。两颗中子星碰撞后产生的电磁辐射随后在整个电磁波谱中被探测到，从伽马射线到无线电波，这可能是天文学历史上对单个物体最强烈的观测活动。在目前正在进行的科学运行的第一部分中，最近观察到另一个可能的双中子星合并。这项提议的目标是继续运行LIGO仪器，并利用合并黑洞和中子星的信号来更多地了解这些物体、恒星和物质在极端条件下的演化，并测试我们对引力本身的理解。我们还将开始为这些仪器的第一次升级安装和调试新的技术解决方案，这些仪器应该在2024年开始观测，并允许观察到更弱的信号，使研究成为可能，并有望提供令人惊讶的发现。

Most of our knowledge about the Universe at large has been derived from what scientists refer to as "electromagnetic radiation" - ranging from radio waves through infrared radiation and light, to X-rays and gamma rays. This has changed dramatically on September 14, 2015 when we directly detected for the first time ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. The observation of the first gravitational-wave signal (GW150914) generated by the collision of two black holes has opened a new chapter in astronomy. We have discovered binary black holes, and learnt that every 15 minutes somewhere in the Universe two heavy stellar-mass black holes collide. In fact, since September 2015 we have observed nine more collisions of this kind and we are currently analysing a new set of data that contain approximately 40 candidate signals. On August 17, 2017 we observed GW170817, the first merger of a binary neutron star. Electro-magnetic radiation generated in the aftermath of the collision of the two neutron stars was then detected across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-rays to radio waves, in possibly the most intense observational campaign of a single object in the history of astronomy. Another likely binary neutron star merger has been recently observed during the first part of the science run currently in progress.The goal of this proposal is to continue to operate the LIGO instrument and use signals from merging black holes and neutron stars to learn more about the evolution of these objects, stars, matter in extreme conditions, and to test our understanding of gravity itself. We will be also begin to install and commission new technological solutions for the first upgrade of these instruments which should begin observing in 2024 and allow much weaker signals to be observed, enable studies and hopefully provide surprising discoveries.