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Synopsis

The next big discovery in gravitational wave astronomy may be a first detection of continuous gravitational waves from rapidly-spinning neutron stars. This projects aims to develop the data analysis methods needed for such a discovery.

Description

Since 2015, detections of gravitational waves from colliding black holes and neutron stars have led to new understandings of the Universe. The next big discovery could be continuous gravitational waves. These are expected to be emitted by neutron stars -- the ultra-dense, collapsed cores of exploded stars. Such a discovery would open up a new way to explore the physics of matter under extreme conditions.

There are many challenges to making a first discovery, however. Continuous gravitational waves are expected to be much weaker than the short, loud "chirps" from colliding black hole and neutron stars. Imagine a top spinning uniformly about its axis of symmetry -- but if you were to stick a small "mountain" to its side, the top would start to wobble slightly. It's this wobbling of a neutron star that generates a faint "hum" of gravitational waves. To find this faint signal, we need to "listen" for the signal for a long time, using years worth of data from the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA gravitational wave detectors --  but this gives rise to even more challenges ...

The Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics pioneered the first search for continuous gravitational waves targeting young neutron stars in supernova remnants [1], and have developed new methods for performing all-sky surveys [2]. We continue to improve these methods, and look forward to a first discovery...

[1] J. Abadie et al., Astrophys. J. 722, 1504 (2010)
[2] K. Wette, L. Dunn, P. Clearwater, A. Melatos, Phys. Rev. D 103, 083020 (2021)

Required background

PHYS3203/6203 (General Relativity).

Experience programming in Python is essential. Experience with UNIX-based operating systems, and programming in C / C++ / Mathematica is desirable.

Research fields