Building new tools for gravitational wave astronomy
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Date
2021-07-14
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
There has been tremendous progress in gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy since
2015, including the first detection of a GW signal from a black hole binary, the first
multi-messenger observation of a binary neutron star merger, and over 50 compact
binary coalescence events in the current GW catalog. Next-generation detectors such
as the Einstein Telescope (ET), Cosmic Explorer (CE) and the Laser Interferometer
Space Antenna (LISA) should detect a wider variety of GW events at a hastening pace.
It is important to think ahead and develop tools to address the challenges presented
by the upcoming events. In the first half of this thesis we develop tools to compare the
growing catalog of GW events against population synthesis simulations, and then we
apply them to the current GW catalog to constrain physical processes in the formation
of compact object binaries. In the second half we explore the detectability of various
potential LISA sources, including black holes surrounded by ultralight boson clouds,
exoplanets, single intermediate-mass black holes, and “multiband” events that may
be observed by both LISA and ground-based interferometers.
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Keywords
Gravitational wave