Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2016
Volume 61, Number 6
Saturday–Tuesday, April 16–19, 2016; Salt Lake City, Utah
Session S5: Space Based Gravitational Wave AstrophysicsInvited
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Chair: Laura Sampson, LIGO Scientific Collaboration Room: Ballroom D |
Monday, April 18, 2016 1:30PM - 2:06PM |
S5.00001: LISA Pathfinder: picometers and femtoNewtons in space Invited Speaker: Martin Hewitson On December 3rd at 04:04\,UTC, The European Space Agency launched the LISA Pathfinder satellite on board a VEGA rocket from Kourou in French Guiana. After a series of orbit raising manoeuvres and a 2 month long transfer orbit, LISA Pathfinder arrived at L1. Following a period of commissioning, the science operations commenced at the start of March, beginning the demonstration of technologies and methodologies which pave the way for a future large-scale gravitational wave observatory in space. This talk will present the scientific goals of the mission, discuss the technologies being tested, elucidate the link to a future space-based observatory, such as LISA, and present preliminary results from the in-orbit operations and experiments. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 2:06PM - 2:42PM |
S5.00002: Listening to the low-frequency gravitational-wave band Invited Speaker: Scott Hughes Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors are beginning to explore the high-frequency band of roughly 10 to 1000 Hz. These three decades in frequency represent one of several astrophysically important wavebands. In this talk, I will focus on the astrophysics of the low-frequency band, from roughly 30 microhertz to 0.1 Hz. This band is expected to be particularly rich with very loud sources. I will survey what we expect to be important sources of low-frequency gravitational waves, and review the scientific payoff that would come from measuring them. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 2:42PM - 3:18PM |
S5.00003: Simulations of the Birth and Early Growth of Supermassive Black Holes Invited Speaker: Kelly Bockelmann Our work uses cosmological simulations to study the formation and early growth of direct collapse black holes. In the pre-reionization epoch, molecular hydrogen (H$_{\mathrm{2}})$ causes gas to fragment and form Population III stars, but Lyman-Werner radiation can suppress H$_{\mathrm{2}}$~formation and allow gas to collapse directly into a massive black hole. The critical flux required to inhibit H$_{\mathrm{2~}}$formation, J$_{\mathrm{crit}}$, is hotly debated, largely due to the uncertainties in the source radiation spectrum, H$_{\mathrm{2~}}$self-shielding, and collisional dissociation rates. Here, we test the power of the direct collapse model in a non-uniform Lyman-Werner radiation field, using an updated version of the SPH$+$N-body tree code Gasoline with H$_{\mathrm{2}}$~non-equilibrium abundance tracking, H$_{\mathrm{2}}$cooling, and a modern SPH implementation. We vary J$_{\mathrm{crit~}}$from 30 to 10$^{\mathrm{4}}$~J$_{\mathrm{21~}}$to study the effect on seed black holes, focusing on black hole formation as a function of environment, halo mass, metallicity, and proximity of the Lyman-Werner source. We discuss the constraints on massive black hole occupation fraction in the quasar epoch, and implications for gravitational wave astronomy. [Preview Abstract] |
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