RIT scientists reach a milestone in the search for continuous gravitational waves

Scientists on the hunt for a previously undetected type of gravitational waves believe they are getting close and have refined techniques to use in upcoming observational runs. Researchers from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration outlined the most sensitive search to date for continuous gravitational waves from a promising source in a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“These changes allowed the search to become the most sensitive to date, as a more efficient lattice on the same computing budget meant that we could actually use a finer grid than before,” said Kate Wagner, an astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student. The lattice configuration was the basis of Wagner’s master’s thesis.

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Emmett lentilucci, associate professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, along with Ph.D. student David Conran, co-authored the paper, “The Ground to Space CALibration Experiment (G-SCALE): Simultaneous Validation of UAV, Airborne, and Satellite Imagers for Earth Observation Using Specular Targets,” published in Remote Sensing. The G-SCALE represents a unique, international collaboration between commercial (Labsphere Inc. and Maxar Technologies), academic (RIT), and government (National Research Council of Canada) entities for the purpose of evaluating a novel method to improve vicarious calibration and validation for Earth Observation.