ASIS research and development plan (summary)

August 10, 1998

Purpose of ASIS

ASIS (Astrophysical Source Identification and Signature) is a research and development sub-group of the LSC (LIGO Scientific Collaboration).  It was formed at the LSC collaboration meeting in March 1998.  Its purpose is to advise the LSC on the following topics: The other key roles of ASIS is to help determine the research and development priorities of the LSC, and to help establish roles and a program within the LSC, by coordinating the work of different LSC members.

Purpose of this document

At its initial meetings, and during the following four months, the ASIS group has worked to establish a coordinated research and development plan.  The goal is the ensure that the basic tools and techniques to search for astrophysical sources are in place when the LIGO experiment begins it shakedown in 2000 and its first data run in 2001.  This document, the ASIS research and development plan, is an summary of that work.   More details can be found at the ASIS web site.

Coordination among research groups

Many of the individuals working in this area have come from theoretical relativity research groups.   The long-standing pattern of collaboration among these different groups, and the continued interchange of students, postdocs and faculty, should enable our cooperative research program to function effectively.  Wherever possible, responsibility has been given to those people whose knowlege, experience and interests appear best suited to the task.

Content

A detailed discussion of the needs and priorities for LIGO data analysis may be found at the ASIS web site.  As much as possible, these discussions identify the highest priority tasks within a particular area.  These are questions that must be answered, or methods that must be developed and implemented, in order to efficiently search for anticipated LIGO sources.

This document, the ASIS research and development plan, covers only those items and issues which were generally agreed to have high priority.  It is not intended to be either an inflexible plan or the final word, but only a set of guidelines to ensure that the most pressing issues and most immediate needs are addressed in a timely way.    Follow the links for more detailed discussion of the issues,  and of lower priority tasks.
 
 
SOURCE TYPE 
(Status)		 DESCRIPTION WHO WHAT WHEN
Inspiral 

 (Work in Progress)

 Maintain GRASP Allen and contributors Ensure that working prototype system available/maintained vigorously ongoing
New techniques for generating matched filters Prince implement, document and test faster frequency domain stationary phase ????
Owen, Tagoshi determine 5/2 post-Newtonian spin-orbit corrections with no precession 12/98 (paper in progress)
Hughes, Laurence Deliver code for Kerr test-mass limit 6/99
Implement precessing binary chirp generator 9/99
Discriminator techniques for rejecting false alarms Brady, T. Creighton, J. Creighton, Balasubramanian Design, implement and test a multi-template method 1/99
Search algorithms for precessing binaries Apostalatos, Owen Develop search algorithms 12/99
Single detector hierarchial search Osaka  Group  Software Implementation   Summer 1999
Owen Provide references documenting computational gain ?
Finn Provide notes 6/98
Multidetector algorithms Królak, Jaranowski Implement and test on simulated noise Start 1999
? Implement and test on 40-meter noise ?
Multi-detector hierarchical Owen, Finn? Determine specific algorithm to use Start 1999
Time/freq & robust methods W. Anderson, Balasubramanian, Królak Determine best techniques to search for high-mass binary inspiral 6/99
 Inspiral 
(work completed) 
See  minutes .		 New techniques for generating matched filters Sathyaprakash Implement and document Pade approximant method code is available  (code library) 
Wiseman  Higher than 2nd  order PN 
approximantions. Code 5/2 post Newtonian chirps into Grasp and test		  Done.  See GRASP 1.8.6
Droz Implement and test filters from perturbation theory Done, incorporated in GRASP
Discriminator techniques for rejecting false alarms Allen Document and test r^2 test 7/98 (finished) See GRASP manual.
Cutoff issues in FFTs Poisson, Droz,Knapp, 
Owen		 Determine effects of time-domain cutoffs on loss of SNR 12/98 (Done) gr-qc/9901076 
Simple Poisson noise model J. Creighton Design, implement and test a multi-template method 12/98  paper gr-qc/9901075 
Single detector hierarchial search Mohanty, Dhurandar Paper documenting computational gain Done  paper  gr-qc/9703081 
CW & Pulsar Sources 
(Work in Progress)		 7/98 
 
Area search of the sky Brady, T. Creighton How to grid parameter space? 7/98 Done, but needs implementation.
S. Anderson, Brady Plan prototype code 

Flagged as high Priority.

  Dec. 99
Directed search with known phase S. Anderson, Dupuis Prepare data handling and processing platform First  cut done. Code unavailable.
S. Anderson, Dupuis Implement/test on 40-meter data First cut done. Code unavailable.
Vecchio Create/maintain data base of potential CW sources 12/98 + ongoing 
Requested web site from 
Alberto.
Binary system Brady, T. Creighton Scope out search problem if pulsar in binary system  First Cut done.
Binary system Cardiff Group, Papa and Vecchio Scope out search problem if pulsar in binary system 7/98
Vecchio, Papa, Sintes Feasibility study of time/freq tracking method 3/99
Vecchio, Papa, Sintes Implement method on Frame Format data 12/99
1998
Frequency tracking Astone, Papa, Frasca, Schutz Determine optimal sensitivity for given computational resource 1/99 Not complete, but 
progressing.
Physical parameter space for CW searches Owen (and others?) Estimate physical constraints on accelerations parameters  Start 1999
 CW & Pulsar Sources 
 (Completed Work) 		        
Stacked search Brady, T. Creighton Determine optimal sensitivity for given computational resource Done.  gr-qc/9812014 
Directed acceleration search Brady, T. Creighton Is time domain resampling appropriate?  Done. See appendix of 
 gr-qc/9812014 
Matched filtering Jaranowski, Królak Address theoretic and algorithmic issues  See gr-qc/9901013 

 
Stochastic Background 
(Work in progress)		 r-mode instability Cutler, Schutz Could r-mode superposition dominate 25<f/Hz<1000 1998
Maximum likelyhood/Baysian Romano, Finn Test on white detector noise + realistic SB. Document sensitivity increase for initial LIGO. Provide matlab simulation code. 3/99
Allen will try to find student Test on simulated LIGO spectrum ?
2-detector correlation method Allen, J. Creighton test on 40-meter noise Summer 1999
Non-stationary and Gaussian detector noise Allen, Flanagan, Romano 
J. Creighton		 Should one modify correlation method? How? 9/99
Non-Gaussian sources Allen, Flanagan, Romano 
J. Creighton		 Is a different analysis method required? 9/99
Cosmological versus present-day sources Allen, Finn? At what frequencies do present day sources dominate? 12/99
 Stochastic Background 
(Completed work)		        

Unknown (Blind Search) 
(Work in progress)		 Noise monitoring algorithm Brady, W. Anderson, Flanagan How to extend to several detectors?  How to take non-Gaussian noise into account?  Test algorithm 3/99
Time/frequency methods    ??? Scope out different techniques to determine where they may be applicable.  Some work has been completed
Blind search methods  Flanagan Literature search for potential blind search methods 6/99
Unknown (Blind Search) 
(Completed work)		        
Triggered Search Finn, Romano, Mohanty, Mukherjee Analysis of one example (gamma ray bursts). How does it perform when detector noise varies?  Done. See  gr-qc/9903101 
Time/frequency methods W. Anderson, R. Balasubramanian Scope out different techniques to determine where they may be applicable.  Done. Preprint available 
 soon.

 
Quasinormal ringdown Vetoing/discrimination  J. Creighton, Pullin Can one use close-limit waveform? 3/99
Accuracy of f & Q determination J. Creighton Numerical test on UWM beowulf 3/99  Start.
Noise models Seismic gravity gradient Hughes, Thorne update models Manuscript done
Accurate models needed for inital, enhanced & advanced detectors, and whitening filters K. Blackburn Maintain  ongoing
Seismic noise K. Blackburn Incorporate angular excitations ?
Seismic noise K. Blackburn update C++ class library ?
Documentation K. Blackburn update Banach center paper ?
 

 Email changes and modifications to Bruce Allen ballen@dirac.phys.uwm.edu.