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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Utah State University

Astrophysics and Astronomy

Gravitational waves

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Quantifying Night Sky Fluctuations: Striving For A Multi-Messenger Astronomy, Rachel K. Nydegger, Shane L. Larson Ph.D. Mar 2013

Quantifying Night Sky Fluctuations: Striving For A Multi-Messenger Astronomy, Rachel K. Nydegger, Shane L. Larson Ph.D.

Browse All Undergraduate research

With LIGO coming back online soon, astronomers are attempting to solve the problems involved with coupling gravitational observations with electromagnetic telescope observations. To do this, my project aims to create all-sky surveys to characterize natural variability to reduce "false-alarm" rates in detections of gravitational emissions.


Characterizing Sky Variability For Multi-Messenger Astronomy, Rachel Nydegger, Katie Breivik, Shane L. Larson Oct 2012

Characterizing Sky Variability For Multi-Messenger Astronomy, Rachel Nydegger, Katie Breivik, Shane L. Larson

Browse All Undergraduate research

Multi-messenger astronomy employs both electromagnetic and gravitational wave detectors to paint a richer picture of celestial objects, providing more depth and in formation. Localizing sources with gravitational wave interferometers on the sky is difficult, with resolution of many square degrees. To have simultaneous electromagnetic observations (localized typically to less than one square degree) requires innovative techniques for the telescopes to find the origin of radiation. One idea is to tile the view of the interferometer, using multiple telescopes to simultaneously point at different areas of the field to observe the source. One problematic aspect of this observing paradigm is distinguishing …