Gravity Wave Detection?

Divide Overflow
Divide Overflow
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 91
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Topic 188160

Bruce, has there been any update to the process of gravity wave identification from a project participant viewpoint? I, as well as hopefully others, understand that the process involves several end users in the BOINC Einstein@Home project identification process, as well as all of the collective resources of the project infrastructure. What then, is the manner that each end user will have any degree of closure or recognition for the successes that they help bring to the project? Will new detections be announced on the project website? Have any such detections been made to date? Will a list of the end users who are associated with processing the associated discovery WU’s and subsequent WU verification(s) be identified in any way? While BOINC credits are a useful way of identifying individual contributions in an abstract way, it does nothing to relate to any successful project goal achievements and gravity wave source identification to those end users who were involved with the detection.

From the Einstein @ Home FAQ:

"What will happen when a gravitational wave was found by my computer?

This question is under discussion between the LIGO and GEO labs, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. It has not yet been answered. Here are a few facts that are relevant. (1) Einstein@Home participants are carrying out one step (the most computationally intensive one) in a pulsar search. However the results are fed back into a later stage of search which looks for consistency between different independent results. So no single user 'makes the discovery'. (2) Since (for the purpose of validation) the work is done by several machines independently, belonging to different users, any credit should be shared between the different users who got that result.

We expect to update this answer in the future."