Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2013
Volume 58, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado
Session R14: Future Gravitational Wave Missions From Space |
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Sponsoring Units: GGR Chair: Peter Bender, University of Colorado Room: Plaza Court 3 |
Monday, April 15, 2013 1:30PM - 2:06PM |
R14.00001: The LISA Pathfinder Mission Invited Speaker: Paul McNamara LISA Pathfinder, the second of the European Space Agency's Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART), is a dedicated technology validation mission for future interferometric spaceborne gravitational wave observatories, for example the proposed eLISA mission. The technologies required for eLISA are many and extremely challenging. This coupled with the fact that some flight hardware cannot be fully tested on ground due to Earth-induced noise, led to the implementation of the LISA Pathfinder mission to test the critical eLISA technologies in a flight environment. LISA Pathfinder essentially mimics one arm of the eLISA constellation by shrinking the 1 million kilometre armlength down to a few tens of centimetres, giving up the sensitivity to gravitational waves, but keeping the measurement technology: the distance between the two test masses is measured using a laser interferometric technique similar to one aspect of the eLISA interferometry system. \textit{The scientific objective of the LISA Pathfinder mission consists then of the first in-flight test of low frequency gravitational wave detection metrology.} Here I will present an overview of the mission, focusing on scientific and technical goals, followed by the current status of the project. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 15, 2013 2:06PM - 2:18PM |
R14.00002: Gravitational Reference Sensor Technology Development at the University of Florida John Conklin, Andrew Chilton, Giacomo Chiani, Guido Mueller, Ryan Shelley The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), the most mature concept for detecting gravitational waves from space, consists of three Sun-orbiting spacecraft that form a million kilometer-scale equilateral triangle. Each spacecraft houses two free-floating test masses (TM), which are protected from disturbing forces so that they follow pure geodesics. A single TM together with its protective housing and associated components is referred to as a gravitational reference sensor (GRS). Laser interferometry is used to measure the minute variations in the distance, or light travel time, between these purely free-falling TMs, caused by gravitational waves. The demanding acceleration noise requirement of 3 $\times$ 10$^{-15}$ m/sec$^{2}$Hz$^{1/2}$ for the LISA GRS has motivated a rigorous testing campaign in Europe and a dedicated technology mission, LISA Pathfinder, scheduled for launch in 2014. In order to increase U.S. competency in GRS technologies, various research activities at the University of Florida (UF) have been initiated. The first is the development of a nearly thermally noise limited torsion pendulum for testing the GRS and for understanding the dozens of acceleration noise sources that affect the performance of the LISA GRS. The team at UF also collaborates with Stanford and NASA Ames on a small satellite mission that will test the performance of UV LEDs for ac charge control in space. This presentation will describe the design of the GRS testing facility at UF, the status of the UV LED small satellite mission, and plans for UF participation in the LISA Pathfinder mission. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 15, 2013 2:18PM - 2:54PM |
R14.00003: A stroll with eLISA through the mHz gravitational-wave zoo Invited Speaker: Tyson Littenberg No great scientific endeavor has been without setbacks, and space-based gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has seen its fair share.~ Despite programmatic challenges, the science-case for a gravitational wave observatory operating in the mHz regime has never been stronger. Improvements in both theoretical understanding of the sources, and advancements in techniques for extracting signals from the data, have allowed the anticipated science impact of a space borne detector to survive imposed reductions in mission scope.~ I will lay out the case for the GW sources which we predict will play a starring role in the eLISA/NGO source catalog, and highlight how inferences made from these systems will help answer pressing questions in both physics and astronomy. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 15, 2013 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
R14.00004: Observing black hole mergers with space-based gravitational wave detectors Neil Cornish, Antoine Klein, Ryan Lang, Emanuele Berti The prospect of observing massive black hole mergers throughout the Universe is one of the main science drivers for a future space-based gravitational wave observatory. Following the demise of the NASA-ESA partnership to develop the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), both agencies have conducted studies of scaled-back mission architectures that can deliver a good fraction of the LISA science at a lower cost. A key driver in these studies has been the ability to detect and characterize black hole mergers. Here I will describe the studies we conducted to asses the capabilities of different detector designs for inferring the parameters of spinning black hole mergers, and I will highlight some of the interesting new insights we gained when looking at missions with very different orbits than LISA. I will also describe a problem we uncovered when comparing different post-Newtonian models for the black hole waveforms that calls into question existing results about black hole spin measurements for space and ground based detectors. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 15, 2013 3:06PM - 3:18PM |
R14.00005: Multimessenger Astronomy: Modeling Gravitational and Electromagnetic Radiation From A Stellar Binary System Kevin Kern, Louis Rubbo The majority of galactic stars are members of a binary system. Although these binaries are prevalent, there is much yet to be learned about their formation, evolution, and interactions. Historically binaries have been studied using electromagnetic radiation, but with the anticipation of gravitational wave data in the near future, astronomers will have additional information to incorporate into their studies. As a start to a proof-of-principles study we produced simulated data representing the expected observations from both the electromagnetic and gravitational wave spectra. In particular, we simulate an eclipsing binary light curve, spectroscopic binary velocity curve, and gravitational wave time series from a generalized binary system for which we input the bulk parameters. Using these results, we hope to continue research by developing a statistical analysis routine that combines all three synthetic data sets in an effort to extract physical parameters of the original binary system. [Preview Abstract] |
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