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2008-09-04 21:57:01
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The dedicated cluster room has 1400 sq. ft. of usable floor space and is cooled by four 26-ton air conditioning units. Heat is transferred to a water/glycol mixture which is circulated to dry the rooftop coolers.


Basically, Einstein@Home enables private PC users to “donate” their computer’s downtime for data analysis. Each computer receives a complex wave, performs a bit of trigonometry and if the results meet a certain criteria, they are forwarded on to researchers for further analysis.

For scientists at a Midwestern university, with data coming in from over 120,000 computers worldwide, the amount of processing and storage required is staggering. The project relies on hardware able to support enormous volumes of ceaselessly expanding data. Specifically, they needed a storage cluster that could handle information coming from 1600 compute cores, as well as the LIGO laser interferometers in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA, and connect to the existing network infrastructure of Beowulf-type machines.


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How to find gravitational waves


Physicist Alan Wiseman gives a tour of the supercomputing grid at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that is helping search for gravitational waves in space.



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2008-09-04 22:12:58


LIGO Gravitational Wave Observatory


The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory is spearheading the completely new field of gravitational wave astronomy and opening a whole new window on the universe.

LIGO's exquisitely sensitive instruments may ultimately take us farther back in time than we've ever been, catching, perhaps, the first murmurs of the universe in formation.




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2008-09-04 23:22:35


Gravity: Making Waves


The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory.




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2008-10-03 15:22:26




For tens of thousands of computer users world-wide, the hunt for gravitational waves is anything but a remote scientific endeavor - it takes place right on their personal computers. Whenever they are not otherwise in use, these computers analyze data packets from the LIGO detectors and GEO 600. A screen saver (above) keeps the user up to date and shows in which celestial region his or her computer is currently searching for gravitational waves.

There is a solid scientific reason for involving so many people and computers: The hunt for gravitational waves calls for immense computing power. This is because in current gravitational wave detectors (see our spotlight topic Listening posts around the globe), typical gravitational wave signals are expected to be very weak compared with all the noise from thermal motion to seismic tremors present in the detector output. A good way to find out whether a given detector is listening to a gravitational wave or merely to noise is by a systematic search for well-known gravitational wave signals. This search - looking for characteristic patterns buried deep within large amounts of data - requires an inordinate amount of computing power and time.

Although, as of June 2005, less than half a year has passed since the official start of Einstein@Home, public interest and participation have been overwhelming. Over 90,000 users with nearly 200,000 computers are registered, with a few hundred new users joining every day. This has brought the computational power of Einstein@Home to 48 trillion elementary computations per second - the power of a major-league supercomputer. (More precisely, the "elementary computations" are "floating point operations" - the elementary steps of every calculation done by computer. In computer lingo, this means that Einstein@Home now has 48 Teraflops.)


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2008-10-03 17:39:26







Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the universe and set the course for physics research in the twentieth century. Now, 50 years after his death and 100 years after his Special Theory of Relativity was published, we have the chance to confirm one of Einstein’s most important predictions. But we need your help – read on to find out why you should get involved.

Einstein suggested that we live in a universe full of gravitational waves. He proposed that exploding stars, colliding black holes and other violent events create waves that alter space and time. We have not detected these waves yet because it requires tools sensitive enough to measure very small effects. It’s like trying to detect a change in the distance from the earth to the sun equal to the width of an atom.

Technology has caught up with Einstein’s prediction. We now have detectors sensitive enough to see these waves. Two of them, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States and GEO 600 in Germany, are working together to find gravitational waves from stars and black holes. These experiments require enormous amounts of data to be processed, so the LIGO group created Einstein@Home.



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2008-10-03 22:35:39





In 1916 Albert Einstein postulated that our universe is pulsing with gravitational waves created by the gyrations of black holes, neutron stars and other cosmic colossi. Nearly a century later, these waves’ existence has yet to be confirmed.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, will detect the ripples in space-time using controlled laser light to precisely measure the time it takes light to travel between suspended mirrors.

In celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005 honoring this great scientist, and with the support of the American Physical Society and international organizations, LIGO launched Einstein@home, modeled after SETI@home, to attract CPU power to their data-intensive search.


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2008-10-18 18:09:08


Beyond Einstein: 15-4 Gravitational Waves (22 minutes)


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2008-10-18 18:59:22
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Looking for Gravitational Waves ...


I wrote the following for my Mom because she wanted to understand what I was working on. When my wife read it, she thought it was a great description of my work (great meaning that I had finally explained it in a comprehensible way).

Now, when her friends ask what I work on, she shows them this description. So, since everyone seems to be reading it anyway, I thought I'd put it up here so you can read it too. Hope you like it.

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2008-10-18 19:43:47


General Relativity: gravitational waves





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2008-10-19 13:30:13



What are gravitational waves?


Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events in the distant universe, for example by the collision of two black holes or by the cores of supernova explosions. Gravitational waves are emitted by accelerating masses much as electromagnetic waves are produced by accelerating charges.

These ripples in the space-time fabric travel to Earth, bringing with them information about their violent origins and about the nature of gravity.

Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity, but only since the 1990s has technology become powerful enough to permit detecting them and harnessing them for science.

Although they have not yet been detected directly, the influence of gravitational waves on a binary pulsar (two neutron stars orbiting each other) has been measured accurately and is in good agreement with the predictions.

Scientists therefore have great confidence that gravitational waves exist. Joseph Taylor and Russel Hulse were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of this binary pulsar.



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2008-10-20 15:13:18





Einstein posited in his general theory of relativity that gravity, like light, was a wave, and that the speed of the gravity wave was the same as the speed of light. If this is indeed the case then the Earth would be freed from its orbit at the very same instant we saw the Sun disappear.

Up till now, Einstein's view has been generally accepted by the scientific community, but recently some cosmologists have suggested that gravity may be able to take shortcuts through the extra dimensions postulated by string theory, and may actually appear to travel faster than light - which has to take the long way around - without violating general relativity.

These arguments may finally have been settled by scientists Ed Formalont and Sergei Kopeikin, who think they have made the first ever measurements of the speed of gravity. It was previously thought that the only way to know how fast gravity travelled would be to time the gravitational ripples in space-time caused by sudden changes to a mass.

And it didn't seem like this would be done any time soon since - despite much research - so far no one has even managed to detect gravity waves (see Catching waves with Kip Thorne from Issue 18 of Plus).

But Kopeikin and Formalont think they have found another way to measure the speed of gravity, thanks to some hardcore mathematical manipulation.


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2008-10-20 18:53:56


A Look at LIGO


Jay Marx, a high-profile experimental particle physicist, is at the forefront of the emerging field of gravitational wave astronomy. Marx directs the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, which is uncovering messages the waves bring from black holes, neutron stars and processes that formed the universe. First predicted by Albert Einstein, these waves or ripples in space-time are only now being measured.






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2008-10-21 22:44:11


Einstein - Shedding Light on the Universe


Einstein's theories revolutionized our world, giving birth to a new nuclear age. His name has become a byword for intelligence; his iconic image adorns countless posters.

This lively and informative educational film made for a teen aged audience offers a fun way of learning about Einstein's life and theories. Using dynamic and colorful animation we are introduced to the ideas behind relativity and nuclear physics.

We also get to know a bit more about the man behind the crazy white hair...




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2008-12-24 10:36:53


Einstein@Home Scours the Heavens for Gravity Waves


Einstein@Home gathered momentum when Bruce Allen of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee took charge of the project, assembling a multinational team to approach the formidable challenges of code-writing and hardware assembly.

Bruce Allen points out that recent revisions in the search algorithm have improved LIGO’s sensitivity by a factor of 5, thereby increasing the number of anticipated sources by a factor of 125. LIGO’s ever-increasing sensitivity has put science within striking range of a first detection. Many express optimism that an enhanced version of LIGO, (slated to begin operation in 2009), may pick out the first delicate signals, almost a decade ahead of a comprehensive overhaul.

By around 2016, advanced LIGO’s dramatically expanded powers of perception promise to revolutionize the field, capturing gravitational waves from a plethora of sources. “There’s lots of reasons to think that we’ll see some signals that will have electromagnetic counterparts and others where we will be on our own,” says Saulson who describes Einstein@Home as “by far the best way we have found to involve the general public in the excitement of our search.”


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2008-12-24 10:41:47


Einstein@Home: Astrophysics for the Masses


One of the great challenges the physics community and scientists in general face is informing the general public about the importance of scientific research, both for our future and in our everyday lives. Formal classroom education and informal educational efforts are among the time tested ways to address the challenge. In recent years, however, new ideas have been developed that go beyond simply educating the public. Distributed computing projects allow anyone who owns a personal computer to make a real and vital contribution to scientific research. Such projects often include informal science education components. Perhaps more importantly, people who join the computing efforts are participating in real scientific research and developing increased appreciation for the benefits that science offers.

It is with these things in mind that the American Physical Society spearheaded the launch of the world's first physics research-based distributed computing project, Einstein@Home, as one of the cornerstone projects for the World Year of Physics 2005. Einstein@Home relies on donated computational power from private PCs to analyze gravitational wave data for signals emanating from extremely dense, rapidly rotating neutron and quark stars.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicts that accelerating massive objects should radiate gravitational waves. New detectors in the US and Europe have now been built to detect those waves. Supernova stars, colliding black holes, and other violent events likely produce the largest gravitational bursts and are good candidates for detectable signals.


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2009-06-01 15:50:26

May 26, 2009

Einstein@Home participants might enjoy watching a new series of short interviews with prominent experts in General Relativity, about black holes and other strange phenomena. This can be found at the ScienceFace web site.



Scienceface.org: Watch the whole story of black holes in a series of 15 short interviews with famous scientists from all over the world, for whom black holes are their work and their passion.

Black holes: no phenomenon is stranger, no reality less tangible. Einstein rejected them, astronomers tried to ignore them. But today black holes are a fundamental part of the way scientists understand our universe. Scienceface.org gives you the whole picture.

Find out what black holes are and how astronomers observe them. Learn how physicists "experiment" with them using the world's fastest supercomputers, how astronomers hope to listen to black holes directly using huge gravitational wave detectors and why scientists no longer have Einstein's doubts about black holes.

Your interviewer is Annalie Schutz, a young musician with a curiosity about black holes. She travels the world to catch the experts, tracking them down in Sydney, Edinburgh, Munich, and Berlin.

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2010-02-03 19:01:53



Grid helps to filter LIGO’s data


Tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time may provide scientists with a way to study cosmic processes that are invisible to optical telescopes, such as the collision of two black holes.

In his theory of general relativity, Einstein predicted that such ripples, called gravitational waves, would be created when a mass accelerates. However, gravitational waves are so small – about one thousand times smaller than a proton – that even the relatively large ones generated by massive astrophysical events are very difficult to detect.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), which has sites in Washington and Louisiana, uses lasers to search for these minute cosmic ripples that carry information about the motion of objects in the universe.

Analysis of data from LIGO’s detectors is very computationally intensive, however, and researchers depend on the LIGO Data Grid and Open Science Grid to process large amounts of data to look for signals of gravitational waves.

When gravitational waves pass through an object, the object’s length fluctuates by an extremely small amount. It is these tiny fluctuations that scientists search for using LIGO detectors.


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2010-02-03 19:16:44



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2010-02-05 17:19:28


Einstein@Home Scours the Heavens for Gravity Waves



An APS [American Physical Society] - inspired distributed computing program, Einstein@Home, is currently enhancing the search for gravitational radiation with over 70 teraflops of computational power, well outpacing other available computing resources.

Prime candidates for Einstein@Home are nearby pulsars with significant ellipticity. Such sources should emit detectable gravity radiation which propagates as pure sine waves. Their detection however, entails a complication. The spinning earth and its orbital motion modify the expected sinusoidal gravity wave, due to the Doppler shift. This modification is specific for each location in the sky.

By around 2016, advanced LIGO’s dramatically expanded powers of perception promise to revolutionize the field, capturing gravitational waves from a plethora of sources. “There’s lots of reasons to think that we’ll see some signals that will have electromagnetic counterparts and others where we will be on our own,” says Saulson who describes Einstein@Home as “by far the best way we have found to involve the general public in the excitement of our search.”

Interested participants can download the program and join the hunt at Einstein@Home.


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2010-02-05 17:54:43


Einstein@Home search for periodic gravitational waves in early S5 LIGO data


In searching for periodic gravitational-wave signals, each workunit examines a different part of parameter space. A key design goal is that the computational effort to conduct the entire analysis should take about 6–7 months. An additional design goal is to minimize the download burden on the Einstein@Home volunteers’ Internet connections and also on the Einstein@Home data servers. This is accomplished by letting each workunit
use only a small reusable subset of the total data set, so that Einstein@Home volunteers are able to carry out useful computations on a one-day time scale.



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2010-04-14 11:39:06



Precise simulations for future gravitational wave detectors


The emerging science of gravitational wave astronomy is optimistically named. Astronomy depends ultimately on observations, yet the only output of gravitational wave detectors has so far been noise generated within the instruments. There is good reason, based on experimental and theoretical progress, to believe that things are about to change. As an example of progress on the theoretical side, Kenta Kiuchi of Waseda University, Yuichiro Sekiguchi of the National Astronomical Observatory, Masaru Shibata of Kyoto University (all in Japan), and Keisuke Taniguchi of the University of Wisconsin, US, report in Physical Review Letters simulations of neutron star mergers that reveal new details of the gravitational waves they are expected to emit .

The effort to detect gravitational waves started humbly fifty years ago with Joe Weber’s bar detectors. Today the field is a thriving example of Big Science, including large facilities [3] in the US (LIGO) and Italy (VIRGO), smaller installations in Germany (GEO 600) and Japan (TAMA, LCGT), and potential future detectors in Australia (AIGO) and India (INDIGO). LIGO, the best funded and so far the most sensitive of these instruments, is preparing a major upgrade called Advanced LIGO.

In parallel with the development of ground-based detectors, there has been substantial design progress for detectors in space. The principal example is LISA [4], which received effusive endorsement from the National Academy of Sciences: “LISA is an extraordinarily original and technically bold mission concept. The first direct detection of low-frequency gravitational waves will be a momentous discovery, of the kind that wins Nobel Prizes” [5]. Space-based detectors will not likely be making that low-frequency (<0.1 Hz) discovery for another ten years at least—not for lack of inherent sensitivity or progress in technology development, but rather because rapid deployment is not a characteristic of billion-dollar space research missions.


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2010-05-23 12:16:52


LIGO : Einstein's Dream Detector


Almost one hundred years ago the great Albert Einstein published the theory of General Relativity and gravitational waves were one of the major predictions of this theory. Gravitational waves are a disturbance in the curvature of space-time caused by the motions of matter and they propagate as a wave, traveling outward from a moving object or system of objects.

Important examples of systems which emit gravitational waves are binary star systems, where the two stars in the binary are white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes. (Even seemingly less dynamic systems, like our solar system, generate gravity waves as the planets revolve around the sun, but at much smaller amplitudes.) But when Einstein predicted gravitational waves, technology was not at the point where detection of gravitational waves was possible.

By the 1970s, scientists realized the applicability of laser interferometry to gravitational wave measurements. One of them was Rainer Weiss, who is now professor emeritus of physics at MIT. Based on his design, LIGO was built and this project was funded by the National Science Foundation. So scientist started working on laser interferometry and in August 2002, LIGO started searching gravitational waves. Its aim is to detect the gravitational waves from black holes, binary stars, neutron stars and the remnants of gravitational radiation left over form the Big Bang.



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2010-05-23 12:54:02



Einstein@Home S3 Final Results



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2010-06-26 16:23:09



Germans had been waiting for those first place shockwaves for decades and almost a century for the gravitational waves. The supercomputer, Atlas, is supposed to locate them in the detector’s data with the support of the more than 250,000 participants of the Einstein@home internet project.

On the Top500 supercomputer list, Atlas only scores 255th place with 32.5 teraflops – but only because the recently heavily upgraded computer has not been linpacked yet. The around 300 teraflops of average performance obtained by Einstein@home doesn’t count either.




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2010-08-12 23:11:12


Home computers aid in discovery of neutron star


Ordinary computers like those folks use to send e-mail or surf the Internet are being credited with finding a previously unknown neutron star.

Home office computers in Ames, Iowa, and Mainz, Germany, were cited Thursday in the discovery of fast-rotating pulsar called PSR J2007+2722.

It was the first scientific discovery for the project, known as Einstein(at)Home, that uses spare computer power donated by 250,000 volunteers in 192 countries, according to Bruce Allen, director of effort.

"This is a thrilling moment for Einstein@Home and our volunteers. It proves that public participation can discover new things in our universe," said Allen, who is director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany and adjunct professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.


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