The core objective of OzGrav is the analysis and discovery of gravitational wave data. These data are provided by our world-class radio telescopes: the Parkes 64m Telescope ("The Dish") , Australia and South Africa's SKA precursor telescopes, and Advanced LIGO.
Under the direction of A/Prof Eric Thrane, OzGrav's Data Theme is driven by three major research programs;
Under the direction of A/Prof Eric Thrane, OzGrav's Data Theme is driven by three major research programs;
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major programs
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There are a number of compelling sources in the aLIGO band (10-2000 Hz) ranging from coalescing black holes, to rapidly rotating neutron stars, to the stochastic background from unresolved binaries. It is highly probable that the LIGO detection of compact binaries is imminent. OzGrav's LIGO Pipelines Program is broken down into five projects that mirror the organisational structure of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration: compact binary coalescences, continuous waves, stochastic background, bursts and detector characterisation. Our involvement in low-latency searches for binary neutron stars, continuous wave, and burst searches, ensures that Australia plays a leading role in what are expected to be aLIGO’s first detections. While compact binaries are often considered to be the most promising LIGO source, history suggests that such an “eyes-wide- open” strategy can yield key breakthroughs. In the late 1960s the field of gamma-ray astronomy was born, by the serendipitous detection of gamma-ray bursts.
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Pulsars are remarkably occurring natural laboratories for gravitational-wave astrophysics. OzGrav’s mission is to discover gravitational waves, and pulsars offer an opportunity to do this in the nanohertz frequency band. A census of our own galaxy’s pulsar population provides the most accurate estimates of the sources we expect to detect in the audio bands with aLIGO, and rare objects allow us to test the limits of general relativity.
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In order to achieve these data science goals, OzGrav will supply peta-flop scale supercomputing infrastructure and expertise. The analysis of Advanced LIGO data will require large-scale parallel processing in order to carry out matched filter searches in real time. Pulsar observations use on-site supercomputers to extract the beam-shape of neutron stars that are later searched for sub-microsecond delays, indicative of passing gravitational waves. Finally, new pulsars in relativistic orbits offer the chance to test Einstein’s theories exhaustively but can only be found by searching enormous dimensions of phase space. In short, the computational demands of our science are immense. Efficient supercomputing is not just about the peak performance of a computer, but its design, operation and code optimisation. OzGrav's team of data scientists will be world-leaders in the production of highly- efficient codes for gravitational wave detection in both the audio and nanohertz (nHz) bands.
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