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Gravitational waves

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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Swarm Intelligence Methods For Extreme Mass Ratio Inspiral Search: First Application Of Particle Swarm Optimization, Xiao-Bo Zou, Soumya D. Mohanty, Hong-Gang Luo, Yu-Xiao Liu Feb 2024

Swarm Intelligence Methods For Extreme Mass Ratio Inspiral Search: First Application Of Particle Swarm Optimization, Xiao-Bo Zou, Soumya D. Mohanty, Hong-Gang Luo, Yu-Xiao Liu

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Swarm intelligence (SI) methods are nature-inspired metaheuristics for global optimization that exploit a coordinated stochastic search strategy by a group of agents. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is an established SI method that has been applied successfully to the optimization of rugged high-dimensional likelihood functions, a problem that represents the main bottleneck across a variety of gravitational wave (GW) data analysis challenges. We present results from the first application of PSO to one of the most difficult of these challenges, namely the search for the Extreme Mass Ratio Inspiral (EMRI) in data from future spaceborne GW detectors such as LISA, Taiji, …


Analyzing The On Source Window Of Supernova Sn2019ejj With A Multi Layered Signal Enhancement Algorithm With Coherent Waveburst And A Convolutional Neural Network, Michael Gale Benjamin Jul 2023

Analyzing The On Source Window Of Supernova Sn2019ejj With A Multi Layered Signal Enhancement Algorithm With Coherent Waveburst And A Convolutional Neural Network, Michael Gale Benjamin

Theses and Dissertations

Core collapse supernovae (CCSN) are highly anticipated sources of gravitational waves during the fourth observation run (O4). CCSN signals are weak and unmodeled and the rate of occurrence in our galaxy is very low. Because of this, they provide a greater challenge to detect than previously detected GW sources. CCSN simulations are used to test the detection pipeline in the event a CCSN is detected. CCSN GW signals are often indistinguishable from the noise sources present in GW data. We present a multi layered signal enhancement pipeline which we have applied Machine Learning (ML) techniques. We have used a Convolutional …


Glitch Subtraction From Gravitational Wave Data Using Adaptive Spline Fitting, Soumya D. Mohanty, Mohammad A. T. Chowdhury May 2023

Glitch Subtraction From Gravitational Wave Data Using Adaptive Spline Fitting, Soumya D. Mohanty, Mohammad A. T. Chowdhury

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transient signals of instrumental and environmental origins ("glitches") in gravitational wave data elevate the false alarm rate of searches for astrophysical signals and reduce their sensitivity. Glitches that directly overlap astrophysical signals hinder their detection and worsen parameter estimation errors. As the fraction of data occupied by detectable astrophysical signals will be higher in next generation detectors, such problematic overlaps could become more frequent. These adverse effects of glitches can be mitigated by estimating and subtracting them out from the data, but their unpredictable waveforms and large morphological diversity pose a challenge. Subtraction of glitches using data from auxiliary sensors …


Search For Continuous Gravitational Wave Emission From The Milky Way Center In O3 Ligo-Virgo Data, R. Abbott, H. Abe, F. Acernese, M. G. Benjamin, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, F. Llamas, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang Aug 2022

Search For Continuous Gravitational Wave Emission From The Milky Way Center In O3 Ligo-Virgo Data, R. Abbott, H. Abe, F. Acernese, M. G. Benjamin, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, F. Llamas, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a directed search for continuous gravitational wave (CW) signals emitted by spinning neutron stars located in the inner parsecs of the Galactic Center (GC). Compelling evidence for the presence of a numerous population of neutron stars has been reported in the literature, turning this region into a very interesting place to look for CWs. In this search, data from the full O3 LIGO-Virgo run in the detector frequency band [10,2000]  Hz have been used. No significant detection was found and 95% confidence level upper limits on the signal strain amplitude were computed, over the full search band, with …


Searching For Gravitational Wave Associations With High-Energy Astrophysical Transients, Brandon Joseph Piotrzkowski Aug 2022

Searching For Gravitational Wave Associations With High-Energy Astrophysical Transients, Brandon Joseph Piotrzkowski

Theses and Dissertations

Gravitational waves (GW) have become an invaluable tool in modern astronomy, especiallyin conjunction with other astronomical observations. GWs are created in highly dynamical systems such as compact binary coalescences (CBC) which are comprised of black holes and/or neutron stars. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), Virgo Observatory, and KAGRA have now collectively identified almost a hundred of these events. GWs have also been predicted to come from core collapse supernovae. Both of these types of systems have been shown to produce other detectable transients, such as gamma- ray bursts (GRB) and neutrino bursts. Observations of the same astrophysical system …


Fermion-Induced Electroweak Symmetry Non-Restoration Via Temperature-Dependent Masses, Yu Hang Ng Aug 2022

Fermion-Induced Electroweak Symmetry Non-Restoration Via Temperature-Dependent Masses, Yu Hang Ng

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Standard Model (SM) and many extensions of SM predict that the electroweak (EW) symmetry was restored in the early universe when the temperature was around 160 GeV. However, recent studies showed that the interactions between some new scalars and SU(2)_L Higgs doublet(s) can cause the EW symmetry to remain broken at temperatures well above the EW scale in certain renormalizable extensions of SM. In this study, we found that new fermions from renormalizable models can also induce this EW symmetry non-restoration effect, provided that they have the appropriate temperature-dependent masses. These masses can arise naturally from the interactions between the …


Searches For Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars At Two Harmonics In The Second And Third Ligo-Virgo Observing Runs, R. Abbott, H. Abe, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, M. G. Benjamin, Mario C. Diaz, Francisco Llamas, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang May 2022

Searches For Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars At Two Harmonics In The Second And Third Ligo-Virgo Observing Runs, R. Abbott, H. Abe, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, M. G. Benjamin, Mario C. Diaz, Francisco Llamas, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a targeted search for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from 236 pulsars using data from the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo (O3) combined with data from the second observing run (O2). Searches were for emission from the l = m = 2 mass quadrupole mode with a frequency at only twice the pulsar rotation frequency (single harmonic) and the l = 2, m = 1, 2 modes with a frequency of both once and twice the rotation frequency (dual harmonic). No evidence of GWs was found, so we present 95% credible upper limits on the strain amplitudes …


Using Supervised Learning Algorithms As A Follow-Up Method In The Search Of Gravitational Waves From Core-Collapse Supernovae, Javier M. Antelis, Marco Cavaglia, Travis Hansen, Mannuel D. Morales, Claudia Moreno, Soma Mukherjee, Marek J. Szczepańczyk, Michele Zanolin Apr 2022

Using Supervised Learning Algorithms As A Follow-Up Method In The Search Of Gravitational Waves From Core-Collapse Supernovae, Javier M. Antelis, Marco Cavaglia, Travis Hansen, Mannuel D. Morales, Claudia Moreno, Soma Mukherjee, Marek J. Szczepańczyk, Michele Zanolin

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a follow-up method based on supervised machine learning (ML) to improve the performance in the search of gravitational wave (GW) bursts from core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) using the coherent WaveBurst (cWB) pipeline. The ML model discriminates noise from signal events by using a set of reconstruction parameters provided by cWB as features. Detected noise events are discarded yielding a reduction in the false alarm rate (FAR) and the false alarm probability thus enhancing the statistical significance. We tested the proposed method using strain data from the first half of the third observing run of advanced LIGO, and CCSNe GW …


Search For Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Binaries In The Third Observing Run Of Advanced Ligo And Advanced Virgo, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang Mar 2022

Search For Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Binaries In The Third Observing Run Of Advanced Ligo And Advanced Virgo, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) span the approximate mass range 100−105M, between black holes (BHs) that formed by stellar collapse and the supermassive BHs at the centers of galaxies. Mergers of IMBH binaries are the most energetic gravitational-wave sources accessible by the terrestrial detector network. Searches of the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo did not yield any significant IMBH binary signals. In the third observing run (O3), the increased network sensitivity enabled the detection of GW190521, a signal consistent with a binary merger of mass ∼150 M providing direct evidence of …


Perturbative Unitarity And Nec Violation In Genesis Cosmology, Yong Cai, Ji Xu, Shuai Zhao, Siyi Zhou Jan 2022

Perturbative Unitarity And Nec Violation In Genesis Cosmology, Yong Cai, Ji Xu, Shuai Zhao, Siyi Zhou

Physics Faculty Publications

Explorations of the violation of null energy condition (NEC) in cosmology could enrich our understanding of the very early universe and the related gravity theories. Although a fully stable NEC violation can be realized in the “beyond Horndeski” theory, it remains an open question whether a violation of the NEC is allowed by some fundamental properties of UV-complete theories or the consistency requirements of effective field theory (EFT). We investigate the tree-level perturbative unitarity for stable NEC violations in the contexts of both Galileon and “beyond Horndeski” genesis cosmology, in which the universe is asymptotically Minkowskian in the past. We …


Search For Lensing Signatures In The Gravitational-Wave Observations From The First Half Of Ligo–Virgo's Third Observing Run, Richard Abbott, Thomas D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Fausto Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, Wenhui Wang Dec 2021

Search For Lensing Signatures In The Gravitational-Wave Observations From The First Half Of Ligo–Virgo's Third Observing Run, Richard Abbott, Thomas D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Fausto Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, Wenhui Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We search for signatures of gravitational lensing in the gravitational-wave signals from compact binary coalescences detected by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Advanced Virgo during O3a, the first half of their third observing run. We study: (1) the expected rate of lensing at current detector sensitivity and the implications of a non-observation of strong lensing or a stochastic gravitational-wave background on the merger-rate density at high redshift; (2) how the interpretation of individual high-mass events would change if they were found to be lensed; (3) the possibility of multiple images due to strong lensing by galaxies or galaxy …


Constraints From Ligo O3 Data On Gravitational-Wave Emission Due To R-Modes In The Glitching Pulsar Psr J0537–6910, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, Wenhui Wang Nov 2021

Constraints From Ligo O3 Data On Gravitational-Wave Emission Due To R-Modes In The Glitching Pulsar Psr J0537–6910, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, Wenhui Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave emission due to r-modes in the pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration observing run O3. PSR J0537-6910 is a young energetic X-ray pulsar and is the most frequent glitcher known. The inter-glitch braking index of the pulsar suggests that gravitational-wave emission due to r-mode oscillations may play an important role in the spin evolution of this pulsar. Theoretical models confirm this possibility and predict emission at a level that can be probed by ground-based detectors. In order to explore this scenario, we search for r-mode emission in the epochs between …


Nnetfix: An Artificial Neural Network-Based Denoising Engine For Gravitational-Wave Signals, Kentaro Mogushi, Ryan Quitzow-James, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website. Sep 2021

Nnetfix: An Artificial Neural Network-Based Denoising Engine For Gravitational-Wave Signals, Kentaro Mogushi, Ryan Quitzow-James, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Instrumental and environmental transient noise bursts in gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, or glitches, may impair astrophysical observations by adversely affecting the sky localization and the parameter estimation of GW signals. Denoising of detector data is especially relevant during low-latency operations because electromagnetic follow-up of candidate detections requires accurate, rapid sky localization and inference of astrophysical sources. NNETFIX is a machine learning, artificial neural network-based algorithm designed to estimate the data containing a transient GW signal with an overlapping glitch as though the glitch was absent. The sky localization calculated from the denoised data may be significantly more accurate than the sky …


Diving Below The Spin-Down Limit: Constraints On Gravitational Waves From The Energetic Young Pulsar Psr J0537-6910, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang Jun 2021

Diving Below The Spin-Down Limit: Constraints On Gravitational Waves From The Energetic Young Pulsar Psr J0537-6910, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a search for quasi-monochromatic gravitational-wave signals from the young, energetic X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the second and third observing runs of LIGO and Virgo. The search is enabled by a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained using Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) data. The NICER ephemeris has also been extended through 2020 October and includes three new glitches. PSR J0537-6910 has the largest spin-down luminosity of any pulsar and exhibits fRequent and strong glitches. Analyses of its long-term and interglitch braking indices provide intriguing evidence that its spin-down energy budget may include gravitational-wave emission from a …


Tidal Deformability Of Strange Stars And The Gw170817 Event, Odilon Lourenço, Cesar H. Lenzi, Mariana Dutra, Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian De La Incera, Laura Paulucci, J. E. Horvath May 2021

Tidal Deformability Of Strange Stars And The Gw170817 Event, Odilon Lourenço, Cesar H. Lenzi, Mariana Dutra, Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian De La Incera, Laura Paulucci, J. E. Horvath

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work we consider strange stars formed by quark matter in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase of color superconductivity. The CFL phase is described by a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with four-fermion vector and diquark interaction channels. The effect of the color superconducting medium on the gluons are incorporated into the model by including the gluon self-energy in the thermodynamic potential. We construct parametrizations of the model by varying the vector coupling GV and comparing the results to the data on tidal deformability from the GW170817 event, the observational data on maximum masses from massive pulsars such as the MSP J0740+6620, and …


The First Three Seconds: A Review Of Possible Expansion Histories Of The Early Universe, R. Allahverdi, M. A. Amin, A. Berlin, N. Bernal, C. T. Byrnes, M. S. Delos, A. L. Erickcek, M. Escudero, D. G. Figueroa, K. Freese, T. Harada, D. Hooper, D. I. Kaiser, T. Karwal, K. Kohri, G. Krnjaic, M. Lewicki, K. D. Lozanov, V. Poulin, K. Sinha, Tristan L. Smith, T. Takahashi, T. Tenkanen, J. Unwin, V. Vaskonen, S. Watson Jan 2021

The First Three Seconds: A Review Of Possible Expansion Histories Of The Early Universe, R. Allahverdi, M. A. Amin, A. Berlin, N. Bernal, C. T. Byrnes, M. S. Delos, A. L. Erickcek, M. Escudero, D. G. Figueroa, K. Freese, T. Harada, D. Hooper, D. I. Kaiser, T. Karwal, K. Kohri, G. Krnjaic, M. Lewicki, K. D. Lozanov, V. Poulin, K. Sinha, Tristan L. Smith, T. Takahashi, T. Tenkanen, J. Unwin, V. Vaskonen, S. Watson

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

It is commonly assumed that the energy density of the Universe was dominated by radiation between reheating after inflation and the onset of matter domination 54,000 years later. While the abundance of light elements indicates that the Universe was radiation dominated during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), there is scant evidence that the Universe was radiation dominated prior to BBN. It is therefore possible that the cosmological history was more complicated, with deviations from the standard radiation domination during the earliest epochs. Indeed, several interesting proposals regarding various topics such as the generation of dark matter, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravitational waves, primordial …


Fourier Transform Of The Continuous Gravitational Wave Signal, Sree Ram Valluri, V. Dergachev, X. Zhang, Farrukh Chishtie Jan 2021

Fourier Transform Of The Continuous Gravitational Wave Signal, Sree Ram Valluri, V. Dergachev, X. Zhang, Farrukh Chishtie

Physics and Astronomy Publications

The direct detection of continuous gravitational waves from pulsars is a much anticipated discovery in the emerging field of multimessenger gravitational wave (GW) astronomy. Because putative pulsar signals are exceedingly weak large amounts of data need to be integrated to achieve desired sensitivity. Contemporary searches use ingenious ad hoc methods to reduce computational complexity. In this paper we provide analytical expressions for the Fourier transform of realistic pulsar signals. This provides description of the manifold of pulsar signals in the Fourier domain, used by many search methods. We analyze the shape of the Fourier transform and provide explicit formulas for …


Reduced Calibration Uncertainties For The Global Network Of Gravitational-Wave Observatories And The Impact On Sky Localization Of Burst-Like Sources, Dripta Bhattacharjee Jan 2021

Reduced Calibration Uncertainties For The Global Network Of Gravitational-Wave Observatories And The Impact On Sky Localization Of Burst-Like Sources, Dripta Bhattacharjee

Doctoral Dissertations

The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) is a science facility in the United States devoted to the observation of gravitational waves (GWs). It comprises two kilometer-scale laser interferometers. It is a part of a global ground-based GW detector network that also includes Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan. Calibration of the LIGO detectors is achieved using displacement fiducials generated by radiation pressure based systems called Photon Calibrators (Pcals). The first part of this research described here details the developments implemented during the third LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) observation run, O3, in the propagation of laser power calibration via transfer standards …


Search For Continuous Gravitational-Wave Signals In Pulsar Timing Residuals: A New Scalable Approach With Diffusive Nested Sampling, Yu-Yang Songsheng, Yi-Qian Qian, Yan-Rong Li, Pu Du, Jie-Wen Chen, Yan Wang, Soumya Mohanty, Jian-Min Wang Jan 2021

Search For Continuous Gravitational-Wave Signals In Pulsar Timing Residuals: A New Scalable Approach With Diffusive Nested Sampling, Yu-Yang Songsheng, Yi-Qian Qian, Yan-Rong Li, Pu Du, Jie-Wen Chen, Yan Wang, Soumya Mohanty, Jian-Min Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Detecting continuous nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs) generated by individual close binaries of supermassive black holes (CB-SMBHs) is one of the primary objectives of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). The detection sensitivity is slated to increase significantly as the number of well-timed millisecond pulsars will increase by more than an order of magnitude with the advent of next-generation radio telescopes. Currently, the Bayesian analysis pipeline using parallel tempering Markov Chain Monte Carlo has been applied in multiple studies for CB-SMBH searches, but it may be challenged by the high dimensionality of the parameter space for future large-scale PTAs. One solution is to …


The Nanograv 12.5 Yr Data Set: Observations And Narrowband Timing Of 47 Millisecond Pulsars, Md F. Alam, Zaven Arzoumanian, Paul T. Baker, Harsha Blumer, Keith E. Bohler, Keeisi Caballero, Richard S. Camuccio, Yhamil Garcia Dec 2020

The Nanograv 12.5 Yr Data Set: Observations And Narrowband Timing Of 47 Millisecond Pulsars, Md F. Alam, Zaven Arzoumanian, Paul T. Baker, Harsha Blumer, Keith E. Bohler, Keeisi Caballero, Richard S. Camuccio, Yhamil Garcia

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements and timing models of 47 millisecond pulsars observed from 2004 to 2017 at the Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). The observing cadence was three to four weeks for most pulsars over most of this time span, with weekly observations of six sources. These data were collected for use in low-frequency gravitational wave searches and for other astrophysical purposes. We detail our observational methods and present a set of TOA measurements, based on "narrowband" analysis, in which many TOAs are calculated within narrow radio-frequency …


Gravitational-Wave Constraints On The Equatorial Ellipticity Of Millisecond Pulsars, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, S. Mukherjee, V. Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, K. E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang Oct 2020

Gravitational-Wave Constraints On The Equatorial Ellipticity Of Millisecond Pulsars, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, S. Mukherjee, V. Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, K. E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a search for continuous gravitational waves from five radio pulsars, comprising three recycled pulsars (PSR J0437−4715, PSR J0711−6830, and PSR J0737−3039A) and two young pulsars: the Crab pulsar (J0534+2200) and the Vela pulsar (J0835−4510). We use data from the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo combined with data from their first and second observing runs. For the first time we are able to match (for PSR J0437−4715) or surpass (for PSR J0711−6830) the indirect limits on gravitational-wave emission from recycled pulsars inferred from their observed spin-downs, and constrain their equatorial ellipticities to be less than 10−8 …


Searching For Pulsars Using The Long Wavelength Array Telescope, Keeisi A. Caballero Valdez Aug 2020

Searching For Pulsars Using The Long Wavelength Array Telescope, Keeisi A. Caballero Valdez

Theses and Dissertations

Radio pulsars are fascinating celestial objects known to display both periodic and transient behavior. Pulsars are characterized by narrow electromagnetic radiation beams which restrict the number of pulsars visible from Earth due to the necessary alignment of the radiation beam across an observer’s line of sight. Pulsars are useful tools for a broad range of applications and provide important information about the process of stellar evolution, tests for relativistic theories of gravity and the search for low-frequency gravitational waves. Over 2,500 pulsars have been observed since their initial discovery in 1967 but the search for these objects is continuously warranted. …


Searching For Optical Counterparts To Gravitational Waves, Richard Camuccio May 2020

Searching For Optical Counterparts To Gravitational Waves, Richard Camuccio

Theses and Dissertations

The era of multi-messenger astronomy has begun. The coordinated activities of multiple, distinct observatories play a critical role in both responding to astrophysical transients and building a more comprehensive interpretation otherwise inaccessible to individual observations. The Transient Robotic Observatory of the South (TOROS) Collaboration has a global network of instruments capable of responding to several transient targets of opportunity. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how optical observatories with small fields of view (degree) can follow up and observe astrophysical transients. TOROS facilities responded to three unique gravitational wave events during the second and third observational campaigns of …


Towards A Real-Time Fully-Coherent All-Sky Search For Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescences Using Particle Swarm Optimization, M. E. Normandin, Soumya Mohanty Apr 2020

Towards A Real-Time Fully-Coherent All-Sky Search For Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescences Using Particle Swarm Optimization, M. E. Normandin, Soumya Mohanty

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

While a fully-coherent all-sky search is known to be optimal for detecting gravitational wave signals from compact binary coalescences, its high computational cost has limited current searches to less sensitive coincidence-based schemes. Following up on previous work that has demonstrated the effectiveness of particle swarm optimization (PSO) in reducing the computational cost of this search, we present an implementation that achieves near real-time computational speed. This is achieved by combining the search efficiency of PSO with a significantly revised and optimized numerical implementation of the underlying mathematical formalism along with additional multithreaded parallelization layers in a distributed computing framework. For …


A Nonminimally Coupled, Conformally Extended Einstein-Maxwell Theory Of Pp-Waves, Dündar Teki̇n Dereli̇, Yorgo Şeni̇koğlu Jan 2020

A Nonminimally Coupled, Conformally Extended Einstein-Maxwell Theory Of Pp-Waves, Dündar Teki̇n Dereli̇, Yorgo Şeni̇koğlu

Turkish Journal of Physics

A nonminimal coupling of Weyl curvatures to electromagnetic fields is considered in Brans-Dicke-Maxwell theory. The gravitational field equations are formulated in a Riemannian spacetime where the spacetime torsion is constrained to zero by the method of Lagrange multipliers in the language of exterior differential forms. The significance and ramifications of nonminimal couplings to gravity are examined in a pp-wave spacetime.


The Astrophysics Of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves, S. Burke-Spolaor, S. R. Taylor, M. Charisi, T. Dolch, J. S. Hazboun, A. M. Holgado, L. Z. Kelley, T. J. W. Lazio, D. R. Madison, N. Mcmann, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Rasskazov, X. Siemens, J. J. Simon, Tristan L. Smith Dec 2019

The Astrophysics Of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves, S. Burke-Spolaor, S. R. Taylor, M. Charisi, T. Dolch, J. S. Hazboun, A. M. Holgado, L. Z. Kelley, T. J. W. Lazio, D. R. Madison, N. Mcmann, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Rasskazov, X. Siemens, J. J. Simon, Tristan L. Smith

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations in North America, Australia, and Europe, have been exploiting the exquisite timing precision of millisecond pulsars over decades of observations to search for correlated timing deviations induced by gravitational waves (GWs). PTAs are sensitive to the frequency band ranging just below 1 nanohertz to a few tens of microhertz. The discovery space of this band is potentially rich with populations of inspiraling supermassive black hole binaries, decaying cosmic string networks, relic post-inflation GWs, and even non-GW imprints of axionic dark matter. This article aims to provide an understanding of the exciting open science questions in …


High Power And Optomechanics In Advanced Ligo Detectors, Terra Christine Hardwick Nov 2019

High Power And Optomechanics In Advanced Ligo Detectors, Terra Christine Hardwick

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In September 2015, a new era of astronomy began with the first direct detection of grav- itational waves from a binary black hole coalescence. The event was captured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, comprised of two long-baseline interferometers, one in Livingston, LA and one in Hanford, WA. At the time of the first detection, the interferometers were part way through an upgrade to an advanced configuration and were operating with a strain sensitivity of just better than 10−23/Hz1/2 around 100Hz. The full Advanced LIGO design calls for sensitivity of a few parts in 10−24/Hz …


Hasasia: A Python Package For Pulsar Timing Array Sensitivity Curves, J. S. Hazboun, J. D. Romano, Tristan L. Smith Oct 2019

Hasasia: A Python Package For Pulsar Timing Array Sensitivity Curves, J. S. Hazboun, J. D. Romano, Tristan L. Smith

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred From The First And Second Observing Runs Of Advanced Ligo And Advanced Virgo, B. P. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Karla E. Ramirez, Satzhan Sitmukhambetov, D. Tuyenbayev, W. H. Wang, Adam Zadrozny Sep 2019

Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred From The First And Second Observing Runs Of Advanced Ligo And Advanced Virgo, B. P. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Karla E. Ramirez, Satzhan Sitmukhambetov, D. Tuyenbayev, W. H. Wang, Adam Zadrozny

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present results on the mass, spin, and redshift distributions with phenomenological population models using the 10 binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected in the first and second observing runs completed by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We constrain properties of the BBH mass spectrum using models with a range of parameterizations of the BBH mass and spin distributions. We find that the mass distribution of the more massive BH in such binaries is well approximated by models with no more than 1% of BHs more massive than 45M(circle dot) and a power-law index of alpha = 1.3(-1.7)(+1.4) (90% credibility). …


The Delay Time Of Gravitational Wave — Gamma-Ray Burst Associations, Bing Zhang Jul 2019

The Delay Time Of Gravitational Wave — Gamma-Ray Burst Associations, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

The first gravitational wave (GW) — gamma-ray burst (GRB) association, GW170817/GRB 170817A, had an offset in time, with the GRB trigger time delayed by ∼1.7 s with respect to the merger time of the GW signal. We generally discuss the astrophysical origin of the delay time, Δt, of GW-GRB associations within the context of compact binary coalescence (CBC) — short GRB (sGRB) associations and GW burst — long GRB (lGRB) associations. In general, the delay time should include three terms, the time to launch a clean (relativistic) jet, Δtjet; the time for the jet to break out from the surrounding …