Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Broadband Measurement And Reduction Of Quantum Radiation Pressure Noise In The Audio Band, Jonathan Daniel Cripe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

One hundred years after Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made the first direct detection of gravitational waves. Since the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger, LIGO has gone on to detect gravitational waves from multiple binary black hole mergers, and more recently from a binary neutron star merger in collaboration with telescopes around the world. The detection of gravitational waves has opened a new window to the universe and has launched the era of gravitational wave astronomy.

With the first …

Effects Of Data Quality Vetoes On A Search For Compact Binary Coalescences In Advanced Ligo's First Observing Run, B. P. Abbott, K. Gill, B. Hughey, J. Pratt, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

The first observing run of Advanced LIGO spanned 4 months, from 12 September 2015 to 19 January 2016, during which gravitational waves were directly detected from two binary black hole systems, namely GW150914 and GW151226. Confident detection of gravitational waves requires an understanding of instrumental transients and artifacts that can reduce the sensitivity of a search. Studies of the quality of the detector data yield insights into the cause of instrumental artifacts and data quality vetoes specific to a search are produced to mitigate the effects of problematic data. In this paper, the systematic removal of noisy data from analysis …