Scalable Cyberinfrastructure for Early Warning Gravitational Wave Detections

Recent advances in astronomical facilities have opened new windows on the universe that extend observing capabilities beyond conventional telescopes. Joint observations that combine telescopes, neutrino detectors, and new gravitational wave detectors including the NSF-supported LIGO Observatory are revealing aspects of the universe that are presently a mystery. Just recently, signals from the collision of two extremely dense neutron stars - a merger known as GW170817 - were detected by both conventional telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. The event was detected first in gravitational waves, two seconds later in gamma rays, after 10 hours in optical, ultraviolet, infrared, and much later in x-ray and radio waves. From this single event, the world learned that some short-hard gamma ray bursts indicate neutron star mergers, that these mergers might be the origin of many elements in the periodic table such as gold and platinum, that gravity and light travel at the same speed, and that gravitational waves really could measure how fast the universe is expanding. Despite what was learned, GW170817 left the world with many questions. What object was formed afterward? Was it another neutron star? Was it a black hole? Why was the gamma ray burst associated with GW170817 unlike anything else that had been observed? Answering these questions, and conducting these kinds of joint observations on a regular basis, requires significant computing and software infrastructure (cyberinfrastructure).

The project proposes to develop the cyberinfrastructure necessary to give earlier gravitational event alerts to other astronomical facilities than is currently possible, allowing researchers to collect as much data as possible about these new types of celestial events. This project will fortify the streaming data delivery of LIGO by producing sub-second data delivery to a streaming early warning search for neutron star mergers. Substantial automated monitoring and feedback will ensure the entire system operates without manual intervention. The project will capitalize upon existing NSF investments in cyber-infrastructure for real-time gravitational wave analysis and will significantly augment the data delivery and automation layer for detections which is presently a bottleneck and failure mode. Using gravitational waves to provide an early warning for robotic telescopes will significantly enhance the scientific utility of LIGO data and significantly facilitate multi-messenger astrophysics. This proposal will promote the progress of science in two of the National Science Foundation's 10 Big Ideas: 'Harnessing the Data Revolution' 'Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics'.

This project is supported by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

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.