OzGrav

  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Mental Health and Wellbeing
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Reports >
      • Annual Reports
      • Industry Success Stories
      • Strategic Plan
    • Member resources
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students >
      • Faces of OzGrav
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
    • How to write a research brief
  • Education and Outreach
  • Events
    • OzFink workshop 2023
    • 2022 OzGrav ECR Workshop and Annual Retreat
    • Upcoming and Past Events
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Newsletter
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Mental Health and Wellbeing
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Reports >
      • Annual Reports
      • Industry Success Stories
      • Strategic Plan
    • Member resources
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students >
      • Faces of OzGrav
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
    • How to write a research brief
  • Education and Outreach
  • Events
    • OzFink workshop 2023
    • 2022 OzGrav ECR Workshop and Annual Retreat
    • Upcoming and Past Events
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Newsletter
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us

data theme

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;
  • The Supercomputing Program recognises that proper design, maintenance and operation of a modern supercomputing facility are essential for data processing and theory in gravitational wave astronomy.
  • ​ The LIGO Pipelines Program is designed to maximise the possibility of gravitational wave detection from burst sources, continuous wave sources, mergers or a stochastic background.
  •  The Pulsar Program consists of projects to discover and time new relativistic binaries and millisecond pulsars, and use them to observe the effects of gravitational theories on pulse arrival times. 

major programs

LIGO Pipelines                                                                                                              Program Leader:  Prof Andrew Melatos
Picture
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. 
Pulsars                                                                                                                                Program Leader:  Prof Matthew Bailes
Picture
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. 






Supercomputing                                                                                                                                                      Program Leader:  Prof Jarrod Hurley
Picture
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. 


Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
We acknowledge and pay respects to the Elders and Traditional Owners of the land on which our six Australian nodes stand

​© 2022   The ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational  Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
Banner images: An artist's impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.  Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL
Picture