Chad Hanna, Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences co-hire, uses computational tools to observe and discover astrophysical events, such as gravitational waves, caused by the merger of two black holes or celestial objects.
Hanna, who is also a professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics at the Penn State Eberly College of Science, works in a large team as part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to do this research. Ron Tapia, ICDS Research Innovations with Scientists and Engineers (RISE) team member, is also a part of this collaborative effort.
The research team is using high-performance computing to identify and match gravitational wave patters and then further analyze data in real time.
Many different types of astronomical messengers can come from a single source in space. These messengers are signals that we can detect from Earth, according to Hanna. This research idea, called multi-messenger astronomy, involves searching for a variety of messengers, or gravitational waves, light and neutrinos from neutron stars and/or black holes merging.
“We are driven by knowing that we will almost certainly detect the unknown — new phenomena that we have not yet discovered,” Hanna said.
The focus on the project remains on gravitational wave observation, but one of the stretch goals that the researchers have is to use gravitational waves to detect dark matter.
The observations from this research are now part of the “normal educational mission,” Hanna said. “The broader impact of this research is wonderful to share.”
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