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Gravitational-Wave Astronomy in the 2020s and Beyond: A View Across the Gravitational Wave Spectrum

One of the most notable developments since the 2010 Decadal Survey is the addition of gravitationalwaves (GW) to the astronomers' suite of tools for understanding the Universe. LIGO's2015 detection of gravitational waves (Abbott et al. 2016) from the merger of a pair of black holesroughly 30 times the mass of our Sun garnered tremendous excitement from both the public andthe scientific community and raised interesting questions as to the origin of such systems. To datea total of 11 confirmed detections have been announced, including the first GW signals from themerger of neutron stars in 2017 seen by LIGO and Virgo (Abbott et al. 2017). That event wasassociated with a gamma ray burst; the subsequent kilonovae and afterglow was perhaps the mostthoroughly-observed astronomical event of all time (Abbott et al. 2017b). In the coming decades,with continued investment, the ground-based network will continue to improve in both the numberand sensitivity of detectors at high frequencies, pulsar timing arrays such as NANOGrav willuncover stochastic sources of gravitational waves and then single sources at low frequencies, andLISA will begin to probe the mid-frequency band from space. In this white paper, we presenta broad outline of the scientific impact of these facilities in the coming decade and the 2030s,emphasizing the ways in which

Shoemaker, David↗

Transient Astrophysics Probe: White Paper

The Transient Astrophysics Probe (TAP) is a wide-field multi-wavelength transient mission proposed for flight starting in the late 2020s. The mission instruments include unique ``Lobster-eye'' imaging soft X-ray optics that allow an approximately 1600-degrees-squared Field of View (FoV); a high sensitivity, 1-degree-squared FoV soft X-ray telescope; a 1-degree-squared FoV Infrared telescope with bandpass 0.6 to 3 microns; and a set of 8 NaI gamma-ray detectors. TAP's most exciting capability will be the observation of tens per year of X-ray and Infrared counterparts of gravitational waves (GWs) involving stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars detected by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ) / Virgo / KAGRA (Kamioka (Japan) Gravitational Wave Detector) / LIGO-India, and possibly several per year X-ray counterparts of GWs from supermassive black holes, detected by LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) and Pulsar Timing Arrays. TAP will also discover hundreds of X-ray transients related to compact objects, including tidal disruption events, supernova shock breakouts, and Gamma-Ray Bursts from the epoch of reionization.

Camp, Jordan↗

Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer X-Ray Timing of the Radio and Gamma-ray Quiet Pulsars PSR J1412+7922 and PRS J1849-0001

We present new timing and spectral analyses of PSR J1412+7922 (Calvera) and PSR J1849−0001, which are only seen as pulsars in X-rays, based on observations conducted with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer. We obtain updated and substantially improved pulse ephemerides compared to previous X-ray studies, as well as spectra that can be well fit by simple blackbodies and/or a power law. Our refined timing measurements enable deeper searches for pulsations at other wavelengths and sensitive targeted searches by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo for continuous gravitational waves from these neutron stars. Using the sensitivity of LIGO’s first observing run, we estimate constraints that a gravitational wave search of these pulsars would be obtained on the size of their mass deformation and r-mode fluid oscillation.

Slavko Bogdanov↗

Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy in the 2020s and 2030s

The 100 years since the publication of Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity saw significant development of the understanding of the theory, the identification of potential astrophysical sources of sufficiently strong gravitational waves, and development of key technologies for gravitational-wave detectors. In 2015, the first gravitational wave signals were detected by the two US Advanced LIGO instruments. In 2017, Advanced LIGO and the European Advanced Virgo detectors pinpointed a binary neutron star coalescence that was also seen across the electromagnetic spectrum. The field of gravitational wave astronomy is just starting, and this Roadmap of future developments surveys the potential for growth in bandwidth and sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors and discusses the science results anticipated to come from upcoming instruments.

Compact astrophysical objects↗

GstLAL: A software framework for gravitational wave discovery

The GstLAL library, derived from Gstreamer and the LIGO Algorithm Library, supports a stream-based approach to gravitational-wave data processing. Although GstLAL was primarily designed to search for gravitational-wave signatures of merging black holes and neutron stars, it has also contributed to other gravitational-wave searches, data calibration, and detector-characterization efforts. GstLAL has played an integral role in all of the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detections, and its low-latency configuration has enabled rapid electromagnetic follow-up for dozens of compact binary candidates.

Gravitational waves↗

First Demonstration of Early Warning Gravitational-wave Alerts

Gravitational-wave observations became commonplace in Advanced LIGO-Virgo's recently concluded third observing run. 56 nonretracted candidates were identified and publicly announced in near real time. Gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers, however, remain of special interest since they can be precursors to high-energy astrophysical phenomena like γ-ray bursts and kilonovae. While late-time electromagnetic emissions provide important information about the astrophysical processes within, the prompt emission along with gravitational waves uniquely reveals the extreme matter and gravity during—and in the seconds following—merger. Rapid communication of source location and properties from the gravitational-wave data is crucial to facilitate multimessenger follow-up of such sources. This is especially enabled if the partner facilities are forewarned via an early warning (pre-merger) alert. Here we describe the commissioning and performance of such a low-latency infrastructure within LIGO-Virgo. We present results from an end-to-end mock data challenge that detects binary neutron star mergers and alerts partner facilities before merger. We set expectations for these alerts in future observing runs.

Ryan Magee↗

Foraging with MUSHROOMS: A Mixed-integer Linear Programming Scheduler for Multimessenger Target of Opportunity Searches with the Zwicky Transient Facility

Electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational-wave detections is very resource intensive, taking up hours of limited observation time on dozens of telescopes. Creating more efficient schedules for follow-up will lead to a commensurate increase in counterpart location efficiency without using more telescope time. Widely used in operations research and telescope scheduling, mixed-integer linear programming is a strong candidate to produce these higher-efficiency schedules, as it can make use of powerful commercial solvers that find globally optimal solutions to provided problems. We detail a new target-of-opportunity scheduling algorithm designed with Zwicky Transient Facility in mind that uses mixed-integer linear programming. We compare its performance to gwemopt, the tuned heuristic scheduler used by the Zwicky Transient Facility and other facilities during the third LIGO–Virgo gravitational-wave observing run. This new algorithm uses variable-length observing blocks to enforce cadence requirements and to ensure field observability, along with having a secondary optimization step to minimize slew time. We show that by employing a hybrid method utilizing both this scheduler and gwemopt, the previous scheduler used, in concert, we can achieve an average improvement in detection efficiency of 3%–11% over gwemopt alone for a simulated binary neutron star merger data set consistent with LIGO–Virgo's third observing run, highlighting the potential of mixed-integer target of opportunity schedulers for future multimessenger follow-up surveys.

B Parazin↗

Deep Learning with Quantized Neural Networks for Gravitational-wave Forecasting of Eccentric Compact Binary Coalescence

We present the first application of deep learning forecasting for binary neutron stars, neutron star–black hole systems, and binary black hole mergers that span an eccentricity range e ≤ 0.9. In this work, we train neural networks that describe these astrophysical populations, and then test their performance by injecting simulated eccentric signals in advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) noise available at the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center to (1) quantify how fast neural networks identify these signals before the binary components merge; (2) quantify how accurately neural networks estimate the time to merger once gravitational waves are identified; and (3) estimate the time-dependent sky localization of these events from early detection to merger. Our findings show that deep learning can identify eccentric signals from a few seconds (for binary black holes) up to tens of seconds (for binary neutron stars) prior to merger. A quantized version of our neural networks achieves 4× reduction in model size, and up to 2.5× inference speedup. These novel algorithms may be used to facilitate time-sensitive multimessenger astrophysics observations of compact binaries in dense stellar environments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Jetted and Turbulent Stellar Deaths: New LVK-detectable Gravitational-wave Sources

Upcoming LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) observing runs are expected to detect a variety of inspiralling gravitational-wave (GW) events that come from black hole and neutron star binary mergers. Detection of noninspiral GW sources is also anticipated. We report the discovery of a new class of noninspiral GW sources—the end states of massive stars—that can produce the brightest simulated stochastic GW burst signal in the LVK bands known to date, and could be detectable in LVK run A+. Some dying massive stars launch bipolar relativistic jets, which inflate a turbulent energetic bubble—cocoon—inside of the star. We simulate such a system using state-of-the-art 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations and show that these cocoons emit quasi-isotropic GW emission in the LVK band, ~10–100 Hz, over a characteristic jet activity timescale ~10–100 s. Our first-principles simulations show that jets exhibit a wobbling behavior, in which case cocoon-powered GWs might be detected already in LVK run A+, but it is more likely that these GWs will be detected by the third-generation GW detectors with an estimated rate of ~10 events yr –1 . The detection rate drops to ~1% of that value if all jets were to feature a traditional axisymmetric structure instead of a wobble. Accompanied by electromagnetic emission from the energetic core-collapse supernova and the cocoon, we predict that collapsars are powerful multimessenger events.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Parameter Estimation for Compact Binaries with Ground-Based Gravitational-Wave Observations Using the LALInference

The Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational wave (GW) detectors will begin operation in the coming years, with compact binary coalescence events a likely source for the first detections. The gravitational waveforms emitted directly encode information about the sources, including the masses and spins of the compact objects. Recovering the physical parameters of the sources from the GW observations is a key analysis task. This work describes the LALInference software library for Bayesian parameter estimation of compact binary signals, which builds on several previous methods to provide a well-tested toolkit which has already been used for several studies. We show that our implementation is able to correctly recover the parameters of compact binary signals from simulated data from the advanced GW detectors. We demonstrate this with a detailed comparison on three compact binary systems: a binary neutron star (BNS), a neutron star - black hole binary (NSBH) and a binary black hole (BBH), where we show a cross-comparison of results obtained using three independent sampling algorithms. These systems were analysed with non-spinning, aligned spin and generic spin configurations respectively, showing that consistent results can be obtained even with the full 15-dimensional parameter space of the generic spin configurations. We also demonstrate statistically that the Bayesian credible intervals we recover correspond to frequentist confidence intervals under correct prior assumptions by analysing a set of 100 signals drawn from the prior. We discuss the computational cost of these algorithms, and describe the general and problem-specific sampling techniques we have used to improve the efficiency of sampling the compact binary coalescence (CBC) parameter space.

gravitational wave↗

Gravitational waves from global cosmic strings and cosmic archaeology

Global cosmic strings are predicted in many motivated extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics, with close connections to axion dark matter physics. Recent studies suggest that, although subdominant relative to Goldstone emission, gravitational wave (GW) signals from global strings can be detectable with current and planned GW detectors such as LIGO, LISA, DECIGO/BBO, ET/CE and AEDGE/AION, as well as pulsar timing arrays such as PPTA, NANOGrav and SKA. This work is an extensive, updated study on GWs from a global cosmic string network, taking into account of the most recent developments related to the subject. The main analysis is based on the analytical Velocity-dependent One-Scale (VOS) model calibrated with recent simulation results, which provides a generic protocol for such calculations with details given. We also demonstrate how the GW signal can be influenced with variations to the baseline model: this includes considering the uncertainties of model parameters and the potential deviation from the conventional VOS model prediction (i.e. the scaling behavior) as suggested by some of the recent simulation results. Furthermore, we investigated in detail the effect of a non-standard cosmology (e.g. early matter domination or kination) or new particle species on the GW signals from global strings. We demonstrate that the frequency spectrum of GW background from global cosmic strings can be used to probe the cosmic history prior to the Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) (i.e. the primordial dark age) up to a temperature of T ~ 10 8 GeV.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Searching for heavy leptophilic Z′: from lepton colliders to gravitational waves

Abstract We study the phenomenology of leptophilicZ′ gauge bosons at the future high-energye + e − andμ + μ − colliders, as well as at the gravitational wave observatories. The leptophilicZ′ model, although well-motivated, remains largely unconstrained from current low-energy and collider searches forZ′ masses above$$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (100 GeV), thus providing a unique opportunity for future lepton colliders. Taking$$ \textrm{U}{(1)}_{L_{\alpha }-{L}_{\beta }} $$ U 1 L α − L β (α,β=e,μ,τ) models as concrete examples, we show that futuree + e − andμ + μ − colliders with multi-TeV center-of-mass energies provide unprecedented sensitivity to heavy leptophilicZ′ bosons. Moreover, if these U(1) models are classically scale-invariant, the phase transition at the U(1) symmetry-breaking scale tends to be strongly first-order with ultra-supercooling, and leads to observable stochastic gravitational wave signatures. We find that the future sensitivity of gravitational wave observatories, such as advanced LIGO-VIRGO and Cosmic Explorer, can be complementary to the collider experiments, probing higherZ′ masses up to$$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (10 4 TeV), while being consistent with naturalness and perturbativity considerations.

Physics↗

Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting β-decay rates

On August 17, 2017, the first gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral (GW170817) was detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced VIRGO. Here we present radioactive β-decay rates of three independent sources 44 Ti, 60 Co and 137 Cs, monitored during the same period by a precision experiment designed to investigate the decay of long-lived radioactive sources. We do not find any significant correlations between decay rates in a 5 h time interval following the GW170817 observation. This contradicts a previous claim published in this journal of an observed 2.5σ Pearson Correlation between fluctuations in the number of observed decays from two β-decaying isotopes ( 32 Si and 36 Cl) in the same time interval. By correcting for the choice of an arbitrary time interval, we find no evidence of a correlation above 1.5σ confidence. In addition, we argue that such analyses on correlations in arbitrary time intervals should always correct for the so-called Look-Elsewhere effect by quoting the global significance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Detectable gravitational wave signals from inflationary preheating

We consider gravitational wave (GW) production during preheating in hybrid inflation models where an axion-like waterfall field couples to Abelian gauge fields. Based on a linear analysis, we find that the GW signal from such models can be within the reach of a variety of foreseeable GW experiments such as LISA, AEDGE, ET and CE, and is close to that of LIGO A+, both in terms of frequency range and signal strength. Furthermore, the resultant GW signal is helically polarized and thus may distinguish itself from other sources of stochastic GW background. Finally, such models can produce primordial black holes that can compose dark matter and lead to merger events detectable by GW detectors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Optical follow-up of the neutron star–black hole mergers S200105ae and S200115j

LIGO and Virgo’s third observing run revealed the first neutron star–black hole (NSBH) merger candidates in gravitational waves. These events are predicted to synthesize r-process elements creating optical/near-infrared ‘kilonova’ emission. The joint gravitational wave and electromagnetic detection of an NSBH merger could be used to constrain the equation of state of dense nuclear matter, and independently measure the local expansion rate of the Universe. Here, we present the optical follow-up and analysis of two of the only three high-significance NSBH merger candidates detected to date, S200105ae and S200115j, with the Zwicky Transient Facility. The Zwicky Transient Facility observed ~48% of S200105ae and ~22% of S200115j’s localization probabilities, with observations sensitive to kilonovae brighter than –17.5 mag fading at 0.5 mag d –1 in the g- and r-bands; extensive searches and systematic follow-up of candidates did not yield a viable counterpart. We present state-of-the-art kilonova models tailored to NSBH systems that place constraints on the ejecta properties of these NSBH mergers. Here, we show that with observed depths of apparent magnitude ~22 mag, attainable in metre-class, wide-field-of-view survey instruments, strong constraints on ejecta mass are possible, with the potential to rule out low mass ratios, high black hole spins and large neutron star radii.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Accelerated, scalable and reproducible AI-driven gravitational wave detection

The development of reusable artificial intelligence (AI) models for wider use and rigorous validation by the community promises to unlock new opportunities in multi-messenger astrophysics. Here we develop a workflow that connects the Data and Learning Hub for Science, a repository for publishing AI models, with the Hardware-Accelerated Learning (HAL) cluster, using funcX as a universal distributed computing service. Using this workflow, an ensemble of four openly available AI models can be run on HAL to process an entire month's worth (August 2017) of advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory data in just seven minutes, identifying all four binary black hole mergers previously identified in this dataset and reporting no misclassifications. This approach combines advances in AI, distributed computing and scientific data infrastructure to open new pathways to conduct reproducible, accelerated, data-driven discovery. By combining a repository for artificial intelligence models and a supercomputing cluster, an entire month's worth of advanced LIGO data is analysed in just 7 min, finding all binary black hole mergers previously identified in this dataset and reporting no misclassifications.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Rucio beyond ATLAS: experiences from Belle II, CMS, DUNE, EISCAT3D, LIGO/VIRGO, SKA, XENON

For many scientific projects, data management is an increasingly complicated challenge. The number of data-intensive instruments generating unprecedented volumes of data is growing and their accompanying workflows are becoming more complex. Their storage and computing resources are heterogeneous and are distributed at numerous geographical locations belonging to different administrative domains and organisations. These locations do not necessarily coincide with the places where data is produced nor where data is stored, analysed by researchers, or archived for safe long-term storage. To fulfil these needs, the data management system Rucio has been developed to allow the high-energy physics experiment ATLAS at LHC to manage its large volumes of data in an efficient and scalable way. But ATLAS is not alone, and several diverse scientific projects have started evaluating, adopting, and adapting the Rucio system for their own needs. As the Rucio community has grown, many improvements have been introduced, customisations have been added, and many bugs have been fixed. Additionally, new dataflows have been investigated and operational experiences have been documented. In this article we collect and compare the common successes, pitfalls, and oddities that arose in the evaluation efforts of multiple diverse experiments, and compare them with the ATLAS experience. This includes the high-energy physics experiments Belle II and CMS, the neutrino experiment DUNE, the scattering radar experiment EISCAT3D, the gravitational wave observatories LIGO and VIRGO, the SKA radio telescope, and the dark matter search experiment XENON.

Lassnig, Mario↗

Measuring neutron star radius with second and third generation gravitational wave detector networks

The next generation of ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors will observe mergers of black holes and neutron stars throughout cosmic time. A large number of the binary neutron star merger events will be observed with extreme high fidelity, and will provide stringent constraints on the equation of state of nuclear matter. In this paper, we investigate the systematic improvement in the measurability of the equation of state with increase in detector sensitivity by combining constraints obtained on the radius of a 1.4 M ⊙ neutron star from a simulated source population. Since the measurability of the equation of state depends on its stiffness, we consider a range of realistic equations of state that span the current observational constraints. We show that a single 40 km Cosmic Explorer detector can pin down the neutron star radius for a soft, medium and stiff equation of state with a precision of 10 m within a decade, whereas the current generation of ground-based detectors like the Advanced LIGO-Virgo network would take $\mathcal{O}(10_5)$ years to do so for a soft equation of state.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗