What was Gravity Wave Search O1 Looking For?
22 Jul 2016 15:59:13 UTC
Topic 198705
(moderation:
Seems axiomatically obvious, but an article about the second confirmed gravity wave discovery has been bothering me. The researcher said they discovered it around Christmas Eve, IIRC, and that they didn't anticipate finding any more in the data from the current LIGO run.
Then what were all of us doing with the O1F and O1I Einstein@home searches if they were confident we weren't going to find any more gravity wave patterns in the data (or perhaps just black hole mergers?). Confirming the parameters?
Sorry if this was already discussed, and I'm not trying to be cynical about this or threatening to stop or anything. I'd just like to better understand how my resources are being applied to useful research.
What was Gravity Wave Search O1 Looking For?
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The discoveries thus far have been large-scale mergers of black holes, and were found by the LIGO researchers themselves, not by the Einstein work. The work here (O1F and O1I) is along the lines of long-term, low intensity gravity waves produced by the orbiting of binary neutron stars, rotation of neutron stars, and probably a lot of other things that the experts can tell you about better than I can.