Gravitational Waves (GWs) are a necessary consequence of General Relativity and are generated, simply, by massive things in the universe moving fast. Examples of GW sources are in-spirling and colliding compact objects (white dwarfs, neutrons stars, and black holes) and core-collapse supernova, as well as a zoo of new discoveries awaiting us in this brand new window onto the universe. To date, GWs have not yet been directly observed because their effect on laboratory equipment borders on the infinitesimal. For instance, present day gravitational wave detectors must be (and are) able to measure the length of multi-kilometer baselines with accuracy on the order of the less than the width of an atomic nucleus. Current gravitational wave detectors have achieved sensitivities such that the first detection is a reasonable prospect for the near future. But detecting gravitational waves is not just an engineering nightmare. GW detectors are not telescopes, i.e. they do not “point” to a particular sky location. Instead they are alert to the entire universe, “hearing” all passing GWs as soon as the detector is turned on. Detecting a GW emitting source is analogous to isolating a single voice out of a noisy football stadium. That noise is caused by the detector itself (nothing, including a photon, is perfect) and, for futuristic space-based detectors, the overlap of tens of thousands of unresolvable sources. Put this all together, and what you are left with is a challenging data analysis problem. Through remarkable effort and ingenuity a wide variety of effective and computationally inexpensive algorithms for hunting down different types of GW signatures have been developed. My CV outlines my personal efforts which have been devoted to:

The Gravitational Wave Detection Problem

GWs from Acoustic Supernova

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Department of Physics
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717
406.994.1677
littenberg@physics.montana.edu