Artificial Intelligence at the JRC: 2nd workshop on Artificial Intelligence at the JRC, Ispra 5th July 2019

This document presents the contributions discussed at the second institutional workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI), organized by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. This workshop was held on 05th July 2019 at the premises of the JRC in Ispra (Italy), with video-conference to all JRC's sites. The workshop aimed to gather JRC specialists on AI and Big Data and share their experience, identify opportunities for meeting EC demands on AI, and explore synergies among the different JRC's working groups on AI. In comparison with the first event, according to the JRC Director General Vladimír Šuchav, the activities and results presented in this second workshop demonstrated a significant development of AI research and applications by JRC in different policy areas. He suggested to think about replicating the event at the premises of diverse policy DGs in order to present and discuss the clear opportunities created by JRC activities. After the opening speech by the JRC Director General Vladimír Šuchav, the research and innovation presentation were anticipated by two presentations by Alessandro Annoni and Stefano Nativi. The first presentation dealt with the results of one year of AI@JRC and six months of fully operational AI&BD community of practice1. The second presentation reported the results of the AI competences survey at JRC. The research and innovation contributions consisted in flash presentations (5 minutes) covering a wide range of areas. This report is structured according to the diverse domain areas addressed by the presenters. While the first part of the workshop was mainly informative, in the second part we collectively discussed about how to move on and evolve the AI&BD community of practice.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Search for intermediate-mass black hole binaries in the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

International audienceIntermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) span the approximate mass range 100−105 M⊙, between black holes (BHs) that formed by stellar collapse and the supermassive BHs at the centers of galaxies. Mergers of IMBH binaries are the most energetic gravitational-wave sources accessible by the terrestrial detector network. Searches of the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo did not yield any significant IMBH binary signals. In the third observing run (O3), the increased network sensitivity enabled the detection of GW190521, a signal consistent with a binary merger of mass ∼150 M⊙ providing direct evidence of IMBH formation. Here, we report on a dedicated search of O3 data for further IMBH binary mergers, combining both modeled (matched filter) and model-independent search methods. We find some marginal candidates, but none are sufficiently significant to indicate detection of further IMBH mergers. We quantify the sensitivity of the individual search methods and of the combined search using a suite of IMBH binary signals obtained via numerical relativity, including the effects of spins misaligned with the binary orbital axis, and present the resulting upper limits on astrophysical merger rates. Our most stringent limit is for equal mass and aligned spin BH binary of total mass 200 M⊙ and effective aligned spin 0.8 at 0.056 Gpc−3 yr−1 (90% confidence), a factor of 3.5 more constraining than previous LIGO-Virgo limits. We also update the estimated rate of mergers similar to GW190521 to 0.08 Gpc−3 yr−1.Key words: gravitational waves / stars: black holes / black hole physicsCorresponding author: W. Del Pozzo, e-mail: [email protected]† Deceased, August 2020