Equipment: MRI: Track 1 Acquisition of a Hybrid, High-Performance Computing Cluster for Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis and Source Interpretation

It has been nearly a decade since the first direct measurement of a “ripple in spacetime” known as a gravitational wave. Since then, over 100 gravitational-wave candidates have been detected, all arising from the violent collisions of black holes and neutron stars millions to billions of light years away. These extreme events offer a new look into fundamental physics, from the nature of gravity to the properties of dense nuclear matter, as well as into the astrophysical properties of black holes and neutron stars. Extracting these insights, however, requires major computing resources, especially given the ever-increasing number of gravitational-wave detections. This award supports the purchase of a high-performance computing cluster at Northwestern University for use in analyzing and understanding gravitational waves. The cluster will enable discoveries from large catalogs of gravitational waves and provide a training ground for the next generation of gravitational-wave scientists. With this new computing cluster, the PI's team will develop libraries of simulations of gravitational-wave signals and use advanced statistical techniques to infer the individual and population properties of their sources. The cluster will also allow the group to advance simulations of complex systems of stars, which could be factories of sources of gravitational waves. By understanding how different astrophysical environments affect these sources' physical parameters and comparing them to gravitational-wave data, the PI and her team will answer fundamental questions about the origins of black holes and neutron stars. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.