Subtraction of Newtonian Noise Using Optimized Sensor Arrays

Fluctuations in the local Newtonian gravitational field present a limit to high precision measurements, including searches for gravitational waves using laser interferometers. In this work, we present a model of this perturbing gravitational field and evaluate schemes to mitigate the effect by estimating and subtracting it from the interferometer data stream. Information about the Newtonian noise is obtained from simulated seismic data. The method is tested on causal as well as acausal implementations of noise subtraction. In both cases it is demonstrated that broadband mitigation factors close to 10 can be achieved removing Newtonian noise as a dominant noise contribution. The resulting improvement in the detector sensitivity will substantially enhance the detection rate of gravitational radiation from cosmological sources.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figure

Toward Early-Warning Detection of Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescence

Rapid detection of compact binary coalescence (CBC) with a network of advanced gravitational-wave detectors will offer a unique opportunity for multi-messenger astronomy. Prompt detection alerts for the astronomical community might make it possible to observe the onset of electromagnetic emission from (CBC). We demonstrate a computationally practical filtering strategy that could produce early-warning triggers before gravitational radiation from the final merger has arrived at the detectors.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, published in ApJ. Reformatted preprint with emulateap

Model-independent test of gravity with a network of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors

The observation of gravitational waves with a global network of interferometric detectors such as advanced LIGO, advanced Virgo, and KAGRA will make it possible to probe into the nature of space-time structure. Besides Einstein's general theory of relativity, there are several theories of gravitation that passed experimental tests so far. The gravitational-wave observation provides a new experimental test of alternative theories of gravity because a gravitational wave may have at most six independent modes of polarization, of which properties and number of modes are dependent on theories of gravity. This paper proposes a method to reconstruct the independent modes of polarization in time-series data of an advanced detector network. Since the method does not rely on any specific model, it gives model-independent test of alternative theories of gravity

Bayesian inference on compact binary inspiral gravitational radiation signals in interferometric data

Presented is a description of a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) parameter estimation routine for use with interferometric gravitational radiational data in searches for binary neutron star inspiral signals. Five parameters associated with the inspiral can be estimated, and summary statistics are produced. Advanced MCMC methods were implemented, including importance resampling and prior distributions based on detection probability, in order to increase the efficiency of the code. An example is presented from an application using realistic, albeit fictitious, data.Comment: submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravity. 14 pages, 5 figure

Doppler effect in TianQin time-delay interferometry

The current design of space-based gravitational wave detectors utilizes heterodyne laser interferometry in inter-satellite science measurements. Frequency variations of the heterodyne beatnotes are predominantly caused by the Doppler effect from relative satellite motion along lines of sight. Generally considered to be outside the measurement band, this Doppler frequency shift appears to have been overlooked in numerical simulations of time-delay interferometry (TDI). However, the potential impact on the implementation of TDI should be assessed. The issue is particularly relevant to TianQin that features geocentric orbits, because of strong gravity disturbances from the Earth-Moon system at frequencies $<1\times 10^{-4}$ Hz. In this proof-of-principle study, based on high-precision orbital data obtained from detailed gravity field modeling, we incorporate the Doppler shift in the generation of TianQin's beatnote phase signals. To remove the large-scale Doppler phase drift at frequencies $<1\times 10^{-4}$ Hz, we develop a high-performance high-pass filter and consider two possible processing sequences, i.e., applying the filter before or after TDI combinations. Our simulation results favor the former and demonstrate successful removal of the low-frequency gravity disturbances for TianQin without degrading the TDI performance, assuming 10 m pseudo-ranging uncertainty. The filtering scheme can be used in developing the initial noise-reduction pipeline for TianQin.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, revised to match the version accepted by Phys. Rev.

BICEP2 II: Experiment and Three-Year Data Set

We report on the design and performance of the BICEP2 instrument and on its three-year data set. BICEP2 was designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on angular scales of 1 to 5 degrees ($\ell$=40-200), near the expected peak of the B-mode polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic inflation. Measuring B-modes requires dramatic improvements in sensitivity combined with exquisite control of systematics. The BICEP2 telescope observed from the South Pole with a 26~cm aperture and cold, on-axis, refractive optics. BICEP2 also adopted a new detector design in which beam-defining slot antenna arrays couple to transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers, all fabricated on a common substrate. The antenna-coupled TES detectors supported scalable fabrication and multiplexed readout that allowed BICEP2 to achieve a high detector count of 500 bolometers at 150 GHz, giving unprecedented sensitivity to B-modes at degree angular scales. After optimization of detector and readout parameters, BICEP2 achieved an instrument noise-equivalent temperature of 15.8 $\mu$K sqrt(s). The full data set reached Stokes Q and U map depths of 87.2 nK in square-degree pixels (5.2 $\mu$K arcmin) over an effective area of 384 square degrees within a 1000 square degree field. These are the deepest CMB polarization maps at degree angular scales to date. The power spectrum analysis presented in a companion paper has resulted in a significant detection of B-mode polarization at degree scales.Comment: 30 pages, 24 figure

A Brief Analysis of Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) Publication from 2009 to May 2013

Gravitational Search Algorithm was introduced in year 2009. Since its introduction, the academic community shows a great interest on this algorith. This can be seen by the high number of publications with a short span of time. This paper analyses the publication trend of Gravitational Search Algorithm since its introduction until May 2013. The objective of this paper is to give exposure to reader the publication trend in the area of Gravitational Search Algorithm

Time-delay interferometric ranging for LISA: Statistical analysis of bias-free ranging using laser noise minimization

Die Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) ist eine Mission der europäischen Weltraumagentur (ESA) zur Detektion von Gravitationswellen im Frequenzbereich zwischen 10^-4 Hz und 1 Hz. Gravitationswellen induzieren relative Abstandsänderungen, die LISA mithilfe von Laserinterferometrie mit Picometerpräzision misst. Ein großes Problem hierbei ist das Frequenzrauschen der Laser. Um dieses zu unterdrücken, ist es notwendig, mithilfe eines Algorithmus namens TDI (engl. time-delay interferometry), virtuelle Interferometer mit gleichlangen Armen zu konstruieren, wie z.B. das klassische Michelson-Interferometer. In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir die Performanz von TDI unter realistischen Bedingungen und identifizieren verschiedene Kopplungsmechanismen des Laserfrequenzrauschens. Als erstes betrachten wir die Datenverarbeitung an Bord der Satelliten, die benötigt wird, um die Abtastrate der interferometrischen Messungen zu reduzieren. Hierfür sind Anti-Alias-Filter vorgesehen, die der Faltung von Laserrauschleistung in das Beobachtungsband vorbeugen. Außerdem wirkt sich die Ebenheit der Filter auf die Effektivität von TDI aus (engl. flexing-filtering-effect). Dieser Effekt ist bereits in der Literatur beschrieben und wir demonstrieren in dieser Arbeit die Möglichkeit, ihn mithilfe von Kompensationsfiltern effektiv zu reduzieren. Als zweites betrachten wir Kopplungsmechanismen von Laserfrequenzrauschen im TDI-Algorithmus selbst. Fehler in der Interpolation der interferometrischen Messungen und Ungenauigkeiten in den absoluten Abstandsmessungen zwischen den Satelliten führen ebenfalls zu einer unzureichenden Reduzierung des Laserfrequenzrauschens. Wir beschreiben die oben genannten Kopplungsmechanismen analytisch und validieren die zugrundeliegenden Modelle mithilfe von numerischen Simulationen. Das tiefere Verständnis dieser Residuen ermöglicht es uns, geeignete instrumentelle Parameter zu wählen, die von hoher Relevanz für das Missionsdesign von LISA sind. Des Weiteren beschäftigen wir uns in dieser Arbeit mit der möglichst genauen Bestimmung der absoluten Abständen zwischen den Satelliten, die für den TDI Algorithmus erforderlich sind. Hierfür werden die Abstandsinformationen aus den Seitenbändern und der PRN-Modulation (engl. pseudo-random noise) kombiniert. Wir zeigen, dass die PRN-Messung von systematischen Verzerrungen betroffen ist, die zu Laserrauschresiduen in den TDI-Variablen führen. Um diesen Fehler zu korrigieren, schlagen wir als zusätzliche Abstandsmessung TDI-Ranging (TDI-R) vor. TDI-R ist zwar ungenauer, aber frei von systematischen Verzerrungen und kann daher zur Kalibrierung der PRN-Messungen herangezogen werden. Wir präsentieren in dieser Arbeit eine ausführliche statistische Studie, um die Performanz von TDI-R zu charakterisieren. Dafür formulieren wir die Likelihood-Funktion der interferometrischen Messungen und berechnen die Fisher-Informationsmatrix, um die theoretisch mögliche untere Grenze der Schätzvarianz zu finden. Diese verhält sich invers proportional zur Integrationszeit und dem Verhältnis von Sekundärrauschleistung, die die interferometrische Messung fundamental limitiert, und Laserrauschleistung. Zusätzlich validieren wir die analytische untere Grenze der Schätzvarianz mithilfe von numerischen Simulationen und zeigen damit, dass unsere Implementierung von TDI-R optimal ist. Der entwickelte TDI-R-Algorithmus wird Teil der Datenverarbeitungspipeline sein und Konsistenzprüfungen und Kalibrierung der primären Abstandsmessmethoden ermöglichen.The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a future ESA-led space-based observatory to explore the gravitational universe in the frequency band between 10^-4 Hz and 1 Hz. LISA implements picometer-precise inter-satellite ranging to measure tiny ripples in spacetime induced by gravitational waves (GWs). However, the single-link measurements are dominated by laser frequency noise, which is about nine orders of magnitude larger than the GW signals. Therefore, in post-processing, the time-delay interferometry (TDI) algorithm is used to synthesize virtual equal-arm interferometers to suppress laser frequency noise. In this work we identify several laser frequency noise coupling channels that limit the performance of TDI. First, the on-board processing, which is used to decimate the sampling rate from tens of megahertz down to the telemetry rate of a few hertz, requires careful design. Appropriate anti-aliasing filters must be implemented to mitigate folding of laser noise power into the observation band. Furthermore, the flatness of these filters is important to limit the impact of the flexing-filtering effect. We demonstrate that this effect can be effectively reduced by using compensation filters on ground. Second, the post-processing delays applied in TDI are subject to interpolation and ranging errors. We study these laser and timing noise residuals analytically and perform simulations to validate the models numerically. Our findings have direct implications for the design of the LISA instrument as we identify the instrumental parameters that are essential for successful laser noise suppression and provide methods for designing appropriate filters for the on-board processing. In addition, we discuss a dedicated ranging processing pipeline that produces high-precision range estimates that are the input for TDI by combining the sideband and pseudo-random noise (PRN) ranges. We show in this thesis that biases in the PRN measurements limit the laser noise suppression performance. Therefore, we propose time-delay interferometric ranging (TDI-R) as a third ranging sensor to estimate bias-free ranges that can be used to calibrate the biases in the PRN measurements. We present a thorough statistical study of TDI-R to evaluate its performance. Therefore, we formulate the likelihood function of the interferometric data and use the Fisher information formalism to find a lower bound on the estimation variance of the inter-satellite ranges. We find that the ranging uncertainty is proportional to the inverse of the integration time and the ratio of secondary noise power, that limits the interferometric readout, to the laser noise power. To validate our findings we implement prototype TDI-R pipelines and perform numerical simulations. We show that we are able to formulate optimal estimators of the unbiased range that reach the Cramér-Rao lower bound previously expressed analytically. The developed TDI-R pipeline will be integrated into the ranging processing pipeline to perform consistency checks and ensure well-calibrated inter-satellite ranges

Towards detecting gravitational waves from the Crab Pulsar

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47).A variety of fundamental and technical noise sources impact the ability of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to directly detect gravitational radiation. Noteworthy examples include Newtonian gravity gradient, seismic, acoustic, thermal and photon shot noise. These are the obstacles that must be confronted by the planned upgrade to the LIGO detectors, Advanced LIGO. To achieve improved sensitivity, significant improvements of LIGO's hardware must be paralleled by equivalent advances in the digital realm. Using adaptive filtering techniques, it is possible to cancel noise from known sources. We present results showing successful suppression of power line noise at 60Hz by a factor of 500 using commonly available sensors and standard FIR filters. Attenuation of 60Hz noise is particularly important to LIGO due to the 59.7 Hz radiation frequency of the Crab pulsar. Application of the techniques developed in this work to the LIGO detectors promises to improve the signal to noise ratio at the Crab frequency and thus pave the way toward direct detection of gravitational radiation from a known source.by Sharon Rapoport.S.B

Classification and Recovery of Radio Signals from Cosmic Ray Induced Air Showers with Deep Learning

Radio emission from air showers enables measurements of cosmic particle kinematics and identity. The radio signals are detected in broadband Megahertz antennas among continuous background noise. We present two deep learning concepts and their performance when applied to simulated data. The first network classifies time traces as signal or background. We achieve a true positive rate of about 90% for signal-to-noise ratios larger than three with a false positive rate below 0.2%. The other network is used to clean the time trace from background and to recover the radio time trace originating from an air shower. Here we achieve a resolution in the energy contained in the trace of about 20% without a bias for $80\%$ of the traces with a signal. The obtained frequency spectrum is cleaned from signals of radio frequency interference and shows the expected shape.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, resubmitted to JINS