R. Frey Student Visit 1 Gravitational Waves, LIGO, and UO GW Physics LIGO
R. Frey Student Visit 2 Evidence for Gravitational Waves (indirect) T=60 ms T ~ 8 hr PSR Binary n-star system Pulsar period observed over 25 years – Taylor and Hulse
R. Frey Student Visit 3 GW Science Goals: Establish GW detection – test General Relativity Use GW as an astrophysical tool Unexplored territory! GW revolution like radio astronomy?
R. Frey Student Visit 4 GW Sources GW emission requires time varying quadrupole moment of mass distribution Strain estimate: Note: Virgo cluster is at r 15 Mpc
R. Frey Student Visit 5 GW Interferometer Principle Require: L/ L = h or better
R. Frey Student Visit 6
7 Inspiral sensitivity Bb
R. Frey Student Visit 8 Astrophysical signal types Compact binary inspiral: “chirps” NS-NS waveforms are well described BH-BH need better waveforms search technique: matched templates Supernovae / GRBs: “bursts” “unmodelled” search triggered search: coincidence with photon or neutrino detections Pulsars in our galaxy: “periodic” observe known neutron stars (frequency, doppler shift) all sky search (computing challenge) r-modes Cosmological Signals “stochastic background”
R. Frey Student Visit 9 Gamma Ray Bursts GRB HETE-2 gamma-ray lightcurve Source: GSFC 2005: SWIFT – 3 GRBs/week with redshift measurements !
R. Frey Student Visit 10 Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Hanford Observatory Livingston Observatory
R. Frey Student Visit 11 Vacuum equipment – corner station
R. Frey Student Visit 12 Science Running Hanford control room
R. Frey Student Visit 13 UO Noise identification and mitigation: Instrumentation and analysis Environmental noise: seismic, wind, magnetic, cosmic rays, RF, artillery, acoustic Online noise detection software and analysis Intersite correlations Gravitational Wave searches GWs in coincidence with Gamma-ray bursts Multi-event analysis (I. Leonor) “Bouncing” GRBs (R. Rahkola thesis project) GWs produced by core-collapse supernovae (M. Ito thesis project)
R. Frey Student Visit 14 UO Graduate Students Masahiro Ito Rauha Rahkola Emelie Harstad PhD Scientists Isabel Leonor Robert Schofield Faculty Brau Frey Strom Prospects: LIGO very near design sensitivity for initial searches Long science run(s) upcoming First GW detection ? New field of GW astrophysics ? Advanced LIGO upgrades, > better sensitivity