Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Theory Of Relativity And Applications: A Simple Introduction, Ellen Rea

The Downtown Review

This paper will provide a brief overview of the theory of relativity by looking at its two parts: special relativity and general relativity. It will omit most of the complex mathematics involved in order to focus on providing a more conceptual understanding. However, some simplified equations will be introduced to illustrate various aspects of the theory. Some of the experiments and scientific observations that support the theory as well as some of the scientific advances that emerged from the theory will also be discussed. Following the overview of the theory of relativity will be some of its applications in past …

Prospects For Observing And Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients With Advanced Ligo, Advanced Virgo And Kagra, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, Marc Favata, Shaon Ghosh, Rodica Martin

Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources …

Prospects For Observing And Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients With Advanced Ligo, Advanced Virgo And Kagra, Benjamin P. Abbott, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources …

A Long-Lived Neutron Star Merger Remnant In Gw170817: Constraints And Clues From X-Ray Observations, L Piro, E Troja, Bing Zhang, G Ryan, H Van Eerten, R Ricci, M H. Wieringa, A Tiengo, N R. Butler, S B. Cenko, O D. Fox, H G. Khandrika, G Novara, A Rossi, T Sakamoto

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Multimessenger observations of GW170817 have not conclusively established whether the merger remnant is a black hole (BH) or a neutron star (NS). We show that a long-lived magnetized NS with a poloidal field B ≈ 1012 G is fully consistent with the electromagnetic dataset, when spin-down losses are dominated by gravitational wave (GW) emission. ... See full text for complete abstract.

On The Short-Term Variability Of Turbulence And Temperature In The Winter Mesosphere, Gerald A. Lehmacher, Miguel F. Larsen, Richard L. Collins, Aroh Barjatya, Boris Strelnikov

Publications

Four mesosphere–lower thermosphere temperature and turbulence profiles were obtained in situ within ∼30 min and over an area of about 100 by 100 km during a sounding rocket experiment conducted on 26 January 2015 at Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. In this paper we examine the spatial and temporal variability of mesospheric turbulence in relationship to the static stability of the background atmosphere. Using active payload attitude control, neutral density fluctuations, a tracer for turbulence, were observed with very little interference from the payload spin motion, and with high precision (%) at sub-meter resolution. The large-scale vertical temperature structure …

Circumbinary Discs Around Merging Stellar-Mass Black Holes, Rebecca G. Martin, Chris Nixon, Fu-Guo Xie, Andrew King

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

A circumbinary disc around a pair of merging stellar-mass black holes may be shocked and heated during the recoil of the merged hole, causing a near-simultaneous electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave event. The shocks occur around the recoil radius, where the disc orbital velocity is equal to the recoil velocity. The amount of mass present near this radius at the time of the merger is critical in determining how much radiation is released. We explore the evolution of a circumbinary disc in two limits. First, we consider an accretion disc that feels no torque from the binary. The disc …

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 …

The Origin Of The Prompt Emission For Short Grb 170817a: Photosphere Emission Or Synchrotron Emission?, Yan-Zhi Meng, Jin-Jun Geng, Bin-Bin Zhang, Jun-Jie Wei, Di Xiao, Liang-Duan Liu, He Gao, Xue-Feng Wu, En-Wei Liang, Yong-Feng Huang, Zi-Gao Dai, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

The first gravitational-wave event from the merger of a binary neutron star system (GW170817) was detected recently. The associated short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) has a low isotropic luminosity (~1047 erg s−1) and a peak energy E p ~ 145 keV during the initial main emission between −0.3 and 0.4 s. The origin of this short GRB is still under debate, but a plausible interpretation is that it is due to the off-axis emission from a structured jet. We consider two possibilities. First, since the best-fit spectral model for the main pulse of GRB 170817A is a cutoff power law …

The Allowed Parameter Space Of A Long-Lived Neutron Star As The Merger Remnant Of Gw170817, Shunke Ai, He Gao, Zi-Gao Dai, Xue-Feng Wu, Ang Li, Bing Zhang, Mu-Zi Li

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Due to the limited sensitivity of the current gravitational wave (GW) detectors, the central remnant of the binary neutron star (NS) merger associated with GW170817 remains an open question. In view of the relatively large total mass, it is generally proposed that the merger of GW170817 would lead to a short-lived hypermassive NS or directly produce a black hole (BH). There is no clear evidence to support or rule out a long-lived NS as the merger remnant. Here, we utilize the GW and electromagnetic (EM) signals to comprehensively investigate the parameter space that allows a long-lived NS to survive as …

Search For Compact Object Coalescences And Understanding Their Significance Using Data From Advanced Ligo, Debnandini Mukherjee

Theses and Dissertations

Gravitational waves were observed for the first time on September 14, 2015. A 36 and a 29 solar mass black holes were seen to inspiral around each other and merge about 410 Mpc away. This gave momentum to the areas of gravitational wave astrophysics and astronomy. While the universe could be perceived in the electromagnetic spectrum so far, enabling us to "see" it with telescopes, it could now be "listened to" using gravitational waves. Also, black holes being optically dark, could be observed directly for the very first time after this discovery. The 100 year old theory of General Relativity …

Gw170817: Implications For The Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background From Compact Binary Coalescences, B. P. Abbott, K. Aultoneal, S. Gaudio, K. Gill, E. M. Gretarsson, B. Hughey, M. Muratore, J. W. W. Pratt, S. G. Schwalbe, K. Staats, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

The LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations have announced the event GW170817, the first detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars. The merger rate of binary neutron stars estimated from this event suggests that distant, unresolvable binary neutron stars create a significant astrophysical stochastic gravitational-wave background. The binary neutron star component will add to the contribution from binary black holes, increasing the amplitude of the total astrophysical background relative to previous expectations. In the Advanced LIGO-Virgo frequency band most sensitive to stochastic backgrounds (near 25 Hz), we predict a total astrophysical background with amplitude ΩGW(f=25  Hz)=1.8+2.7−1.3×10−9 with …

All-Sky Search For Long-Duration Gravitational Wave Transients In The First Advanced Ligo Observing Run, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, Marc Favata, Shaon Ghosh

Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the data of the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston second generation detectors between September 2015 and January 2016, with a total observational time of 49 d. The search targets gravitational wave transients of 10500 s duration in a frequency band of 242048 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, time of occurrence. No significant events were observed. As a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. We also …

All-Sky Search For Long-Duration Gravitational Wave Transients In The First Advanced Ligo Observing Run, B. P. Abbott, K. Gill, B. Hughey, J. W. W. Pratt, E. Rhoades, E. Schmidt, S. G. Schwalbe, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the data of the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston second generation detectors between and , with a total observational time of . The search targets gravitational wave transients of 10–500 s duration in a frequency band of 24–2048 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. No significant events were observed. As a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. We also show that the …

Scalar Field Vacuum Expectation Value Induced By Gravitational Wave Background, Preston Jones, Patrick Mcdougall, Michael Ragsdale, Douglas Singleton

Publications

We show that a massless scalar field in a gravitational wave background can develop a non-zero vacuum expectation value. We draw comparisons to the generation of a non-zero vacuum expectation value for a scalar field in the Higgs mechanism and with the dynamical Casimir vacuum. We propose that this vacuum expectation value, generated by a gravitational wave, can be connected with particle production from gravitational waves and may have consequences for the early Universe where scalar fields are thought to play an important role.

Multi-Telescope Radio Observations For Low Frequency Gravitational Wave Astrophysics, Megan L. Jones

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has the principal goal of detecting gravitational waves (GWs) in the nanohertz part of the spectrum using pulsar timing. This thesis presents results from radio campaigns at frequencies from 322 MHz to 10 GHz aimed at both multi-messenger constraints on GW sources and improving the timing sensitivity. The primary expected source of GWs at the nanohertz frequencies to which pulsar timing is sensitive are supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. We investigate a purported SMBH displaced from the galactic photocenter in NGC 3115. We explore the possibilities that the source is a …