PHYS 6399 - THESIS II
COURSE INFORMATION SHEET
- COURSE:
- PHYS 6397 - Graduate THESIS II - Fall 2004
- Prerequisite: UTB Master in Physics
- Description: Exploring parameter space for LISA
Capture Sources via Monte-Carlo Simulations
- INSTRUCTOR:
- Manuela Campanelli
- Office: SETB 2.258
- Phone: 574-6656
- E-mail: manuela@phys.utb.edu
- TEACHING ASSISTANT:
- Leor Barack
- Office: SETB 2.258
- Phone: 574-6762
- E-mail: leor@phys.utb.edu
- STUDENT:
- Santiago Peña
- CLASSES:
- T,TH 1:30am-16:00pm. Room SETB 2.258 (Office
Hrs by appointment).
- EXAMS:
- Final: December 9, 2003 (10:00am-12:30am).
- COURSE TOPICS:
-
Grid applications in gravitational wave data analysis (PART II): A UTB
graduate student, Santiago Pena, who is currently under M. Campanelli
supervision, has been working on gravitational wave data analysis of
signals from extreme mass-ratio inspirals, which are important
potential sources for the future space-based detector LISA (Laser
Interferometer Space Antenna), a NASA-ESA mission scheduled for launch
around 2011. LISA will detect GWs from a variety of sources. One of
the important sources will be inspirals of compact objects (white
dwarfs, neutron stars, or stellar-mass black holes) into Super-massive
black holes residing in the cores of galaxies. The parameter space
for such capture events is enormous. Each inspiral is characterized by
17 unknown parameters. Consequently, we will need a huge bank of
templates (perhaps ~10^50!) to dig GW signal out of the noise of the
LISA detector. Since parameter space is so huge one needs to use
Monte-Carlo methods, based on random sampling. This is most
efficiently done using some VDT software, like Condor, allowing to
sample many points in parameter space simultaneously.
- LITERATURE:
- 1) S. A. Hughes, Listening to the Universe with
Gravitational-Wave Astronomy, Annals Phys. 303, 142-178 (2003).
- 2) P. C. Peters and J. Mathews, Gravitational
Radiation from Point Masses in a Keplerian Orbit, Phys.Rev.131, 435 (1963).
- 3) L. Barack and C. Cutler, LISA Capture Sources.
I. Approximate Waveforms, Signal-to-Noise Ratios, and Parameter Estimation
Accuracy (in preparation).
- 4) B. J. Owen, `Search templates from Gravitational
Waves from Inspiraling Binaries: Choice of Template Spacing', Phys. Rev.
D 53, 674.
- 5) C. Cutler, `Angular Resolution of the LISA
Gravitational Wave Detector', Phys. Rev.57, 7089 (1998).9 (1996).