Gravitational Wave follow-up with the PIRATE telescope

The recent discovery of Gravitational Waves by the LIGO collaboration earlier this year has opened up a new window to astronomy, for the first time we are able to observe the universe using gravitational radiation instead of electromagnetic radiation. Our current research involves preparing our own robotic telescope (PIRATE) to respond quickly to any alerts to such gravitational waves, and to follow these up with observations of the relevant search area in the sky. This poster will briefly outline the new setup of the PIRATE facility and summarise our current work on preparing PIRATE for the upcoming second LIGO observing run (O2)

Rapid response gravitational wave follow-up with the PIRATE robotic telescope

This poster briefly outlines the research being undertaken at The Open University in the search for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to gravitational wave candidates detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC). This includes the setup of the PIRATE facility, which is a robotic telescope located in Tenerife, Spain, and is used as both a research and teaching telescope. Additionally the poster describes the methods used to perform rapid follow-up to gravitational wave alerts from LIGO/Virgo, and how the images are processed to look for fading transients. Lastly there is a short summary of results from the last observing campaign, corresponding to the second LIGO observing run (O2)

Secondary Stars in CVs: The Theoretical Perspective

We apply the new generation of theoretical models of low-mass stars to secondaries in CVs, focussing on systems above the period gap. The models confirm that the spectral type should be a good indicator of the donor mass. The orbital period-spectral type diagram can potentially constrain the long-term mean mass transfer rate. A transfer rate that increases with decreasing period is most easily reconciled with the observational data.Comment: 6 pages; to appear in proceedings of Warner Symposium on Cataclysmic Variable

Early thermalization at RHIC

It is shown that recent RHIC data on hadron spectra and elliptic flow can be excellently reproduced within a hydrodynamic description of the collision dynamics, and that this provides strong evidence for rapid thermalization while the system is still in the quark-gluon plasma phase. But even though the hydrodynamic approach provides an impressive description of the single-particle momentum distributions, it fails to describe the two-particle momentum correlation (HBT) data for central Au+Au collisions at RHIC. We suggest that this is not likely to be repaired by further improvements in our understanding of the early collision stages, but probably requires a better modelling of the freeze-out process. We close with a prediction of the phases of the azimuthal oscillations of the HBT radii in noncentral collisions at RHIC.Comment: 12 pages, including 6 figures. Invited talk at the International Conference on "Statistical QCD", Bielefeld, August 26-30, 2001, to appear in the proceedings (F. Karsch and H. Satz, eds.) in Nucl. Phys.

Emission angle dependent HBT at RHIC and beyond

We study the geometrical features of non-central heavy ion collisions throughout their dynamical evolution from equilibration to thermal freeze-out within a hydrodynamic picture. We discuss resulting observables, in particular the emission angle dependence of the HBT radii and the relation of these oscillations to the geometry at the final stage.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, proceedings for Quark Matter 200