Gravitational Wave Astronomy with LIGO Data

This award supports continuation of the activities of the PI's group in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). These activities include support of the Matlab data analysis infrastructure, used by all the LSC data analysis groups, development of automatic and remote science monitoring capabilities and tools, production of simulations used by the LSC burst source analysis group for validation and verification of the analysis chain, and the astrophysical interpretation of the burst source search results.

LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) is currently taking data at design sensitivity---an ability to detect gravitational waves which change the four kilometer length of a LIGO instrument by less than one one-thousanth of a proton diameter. Possible astronomical sources such as star collapse or black hole collisions could produce bursts of gravitational waves. This award supports essential components for analysis of LIGO's data, especially with respect to sources producing bursts.