Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2010
Volume 55, Number 1
Saturday–Tuesday, February 13–16, 2010; Washington, DC
Session B13: Observational Implications of Gravitational Waves |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP GGR Chair: John Baker, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Room: Washington 6 |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
B13.00001: Detecting Gravitational Waves with Pulsar Timing Arrays Larry Price, Xavier Siemens, Jolien Creighton, Peng Yu Long-term high-precision astronomical timing observations of a network of pulsars, a pulsar timing array, open a portal onto low frequency gravitational waves. In this talk I'll discuss progress on efforts to detect both a stochastic background of gravitational radiation and gravitational waves from un-modeled bursts of gravitational waves using a pulsar timing array. I'll also address prospects for stochastic backgrounds of gravitational waves from cosmological sources in the pulsar timing band. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
B13.00002: First search for gravitational waves from the youngest known neutron star Benjamin Owen We present preliminary results of a search for continuous gravitational waves from the central compact object in supernova remnant Cassiopeia~A. The object is the youngest suspected neutron star in the Galaxy. Its position and barycentric timing correction are precisely known, but no pulses are observed. Thus the search, of data from a twelve-day period of LIGO's fifth science run, covers the three-dimensional space of frequencies and first and second time derivatives. Preliminary upper limits on gravitational wave emission beat the indirect limit inferred from the age of the object over the frequency band 100--300~Hz. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
B13.00003: Gravitational Waves and SGR Bursts Leo Singer Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) are nearby, they burst repeatedly and sometimes spectacularly, and their burst emission mechanism may involve neutron star crust fractures and excitation of non-radial modes which could emit gravitational waves (GW). We present recent searches for GW associated with SGR bursts, including a new individual burst search of SGR events which occurred between 2006 November and 2009 June. The search examines burst events from six magnetar sources, including one (SGR 0501+4516) which is likely less than 1 kpc from Earth, and uses data from five GW detectors. Due to the proximity of SGR 0501+4516 we are able to probe GW energies more than an order of magnitude lower than previous SGR GW searches. We present results from SGR GW searches and discuss the emerging astrophysical context. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
B13.00004: Searches for coalescence of binary systems in LIGO and Virgo data Gabriela Gonzalez We present the latest results from the searches for gravitational waves from the coalescence of binary systems of neutron stars and black holes in LIGO and Virgo data. These searches are done with a variety of methods, all using optimal filtering of waveform templates. We present results on data from the Fifth Science Run LIGO run S5 from Nov 2005 to Oct 2007, which was joint with Virgo's first Science Run VSR1 from May to Oct 2007. We also show how these methods are being applied in the current LIGO S6/Virgo VSR2 data-taking run started in July 2009. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
B13.00005: Distinguishing Compact White-dwarf Binary Systems - An application of GW color magnitude diagram for LISA Ravi Kumar Kopparapu The population of Double white dwarf (DWD) and neutron star-white dwarf (NSWD) binaries in our Galaxy are considered to be some of the most promising gravitational-wave (GW) sources for LISA. Electromagnetic observations have already discovered several of these white-dwarf binary systems in various phases of their evolution, in LISA's band of detection. Here we illustrate a GW equivalent of a color-magnitude diagram (CMD), assuming non-zero temperature white-dwarf donors, and propose boundaries for both inspiralling and mass-transferring systems in the CMD. Depending upon the precision with which LISA can measure the frequency evolution ($\dot f$) of a white-dwarf binary system we show that one can distinguish between a DWD and a NSWD system, and possibly the compsition of the donor white dwarf, using CMD. We assess the limits and applicability of our theoretical boundaries with respect to observations and find that a measurement of $\dot f$ by LISA at high frequencies ($log [f ] \ge 2$) would likely distinguish between DWD/NSWD binary. For low-frequency sources, GW observations alone would unlikely tell us about the binary components, without the help of electromagnetic observations. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
B13.00006: ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
B13.00007: Extracting accretion disk radii from LISA observations of accreting binary star systems Shane Larson LISA will be sensitive to a wide range of ultra-compact binary star systems in the Milky Way. A handful of these binaries will be \emph{verification binaries} -- systems which can be seen electromagnetically, and individually resolved and characterized in the LISA data stream. This multi-messenger characterization of these systems provides a useful synergy of observing capabilities that can be exploited to recover detailed information about the underlying astrophysical processes in the binary. This poster discusses how simultaneous photon and EM observations can be used to study mass transferring system and characterize parameters such as the mass transfer rate and radius of accretion disks around the primary. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
B13.00008: Seeking optical counterparts to gravitational wave event candidates Jonah Kanner Large, kilometer scale gravitational wave (GW) detectors are now operating in the U.S. and Europe. Potential GW sources include compact object mergers, supernovae, and other energetic astrophysical events. Many such sources of gravitational waves would also be expected to emit electromagnetic radiation promptly and/or as a fading afterglow. The on-going search effort can be aided by the use of wide-field optical telescopes promptly imaging sky regions associated with gravitational wave signal candidates. Capturing the image of the optical counterpart to a GW emitting event would yield valuable astrophysical information, and could help confirm a GW signal candidate as a real event. This talk will discuss the methods and status of the effort to capture and interpret relevant image data. [Preview Abstract] |
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