Beginning: I will start my document by overviewing current and next generation detectors, and their scientific capabilities for doing astrophysics for gravitational waves. I will discuss the limitations of current generation detectors, including what astrophysical questions can (and have) been addressed, and what questions can only be answered using next generation detectors. More specifically, I will overview parameters of the astrophysical sources of the first two LIGO detections, the associated uncertainties, and scientific implications. Then, I plan on describing why next generation detectors will be far more sensitive as well as our predictions for the science we will be able to do with them. I will conclude this section by outlining the problem we are working on – how detector calibration affects localization accuracy – and our approach to addressing this problem.
In the middle section, I will talk about a toy model we built for frequency-independent calibration uncertainty in the sky localization parameters of phase and amplitude. After laying out our assumptions in order to build this model, I will describe, in detail, our methods used to calculate the uncertainties in phase and timing for each case, which includes the Fisher information matrix formulation we used to calculate the errors. Then I will present the results of the analysis, supplemented by graphs of the uncertainty behaviors.
End: The final section of my segment of the senior thesis write-up will evaluate the usefulness of the toy model, state that it is NOT a realistic model of how calibration uncertainty works, and our plan for modeling the frequency-dependent calibration uncertainty to see how it affects parameter estimation.
LOGOS: past LIGO detections, and how well they have been able to localize sources.
ETHOS: credibility of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, the authors of the references I use, and my advisor’s credibility
STRUCTURE: I will use a looser format compared to IMRAD because it is a thesis and requires more introductory explanation, and is only select sections of the thesis.
GOAL: To present the limitations of what astrophysics can be done due to detector sensitivity, describe how a toy model might help us understand how calibration uncertainty functions, and our methodology for building the toy model, and to discuss what future work needs to be done in order to determine the scientific requirements for these detectors.
In the middle section, I will talk about a toy model we built for frequency-independent calibration uncertainty in the sky localization parameters of phase and amplitude. After laying out our assumptions in order to build this model, I will describe, in detail, our methods used to calculate the uncertainties in phase and timing for each case, which includes the Fisher information matrix formulation we used to calculate the errors. Then I will present the results of the analysis, supplemented by graphs of the uncertainty behaviors.
End: The final section of my segment of the senior thesis write-up will evaluate the usefulness of the toy model, state that it is NOT a realistic model of how calibration uncertainty works, and our plan for modeling the frequency-dependent calibration uncertainty to see how it affects parameter estimation.
LOGOS: past LIGO detections, and how well they have been able to localize sources.
ETHOS: credibility of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, the authors of the references I use, and my advisor’s credibility
STRUCTURE: I will use a looser format compared to IMRAD because it is a thesis and requires more introductory explanation, and is only select sections of the thesis.
GOAL: To present the limitations of what astrophysics can be done due to detector sensitivity, describe how a toy model might help us understand how calibration uncertainty functions, and our methodology for building the toy model, and to discuss what future work needs to be done in order to determine the scientific requirements for these detectors.