LIGO Observations and Gravitational Wave Astronomy

This award supports the goal of gravitational wave detection through the development and implementation of advanced analysis techniques needed by the advanced LIGO detectors. Specific analysis techniques being developed provide quantitative and physically meaningful measures of the odds that a given multi-detector gravitational wave data set includes the detector response to a gravitational wave burst; enable inference of the properties of an unanticipated gravitational wave source from its gravitational wave signal; and allow quantitative analyses to be carried out on data whose positional uncertainty includes a large fraction of the celestial sphere. Methods employed include Bayesian statistical analysis and model selection, Monte Carlo sampling and kernel density estimation methods, and the modeling of non-linear systems through finite non-linear networks.

Gravitational wave detection will mark the beginning of a new chapter in the annals of astronomy and astrophysics, and in our experimental understanding of gravity. Not since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens has the opportunity existed to view the cosmos in such a new and fundamentally different way. This work's goal is to enable gravitational wave detection using the LIGO detectors and exploit LIGO observations as a formidable new tool of astronomical discovery and a probe of fundamental physics. As a frontier of scientific discovery and accomplishment, the LIGO enterprise excites and motivates students to pursue careers in physics and astronomy, and captures the imagination and interest of the lay public. Through its direct contribution to that enterprise this has broad and historic impact. This project trains a postdoctoral scholar and a graduate student in frontier interdisciplinary science. The analysis methods developed under this award have applicability that extends beyond LIGO to other gravitational wave detection experiments (e.g., the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna or pulsar timing array observations), and beyond gravitational wave detection to other areas of science and beyond where inference need to be drawn on weak or poorly resolved signals (e.g., Auger cosmic-ray observations).