Project description
New models to separate gravitational wave signals from noise
General relativity remains the cornerstone of our understanding of gravity, predicting phenomena such as black holes and gravitational waves, both resulting in Nobel prizes. The future of gravitational wave astronomy seems bright since detectors are expected to observe black holes at cosmic dawn and their enigmatic event horizons, where general relativity and quantum mechanics clash. However, interpreting these signals requires a groundbreaking framework to solve complex non-linear equations of general relativity and model waveforms with unprecedented accuracy. The ERC-funded GWSky project plans to develop such a framework that should help distinguish true anomalies from effects caused by nearby matter or imprecise calculations. GWSky advanced tools should allow more accurate gravitational wave observations in upcoming research campaigns.
Objective
General Relativity (GR) is more than a century old, but is still our best macroscopic description of gravity. Key GR predictions are black holes (BHs) and gravitational waves (GWs), whose spectacular confirmation led to two recent physics Nobel Prizes. The future of GW astronomy, however, is even brighter, since detectors will observe BHs at cosmic dawn and probe their enigmatic event horizon, where GR clashes with quantum mechanics in the information loss paradox. These experiments will measure signals hundreds of times smaller than today, necessarily discovering anomalies and deviations from current predictions, e.g. due to the astrophysical environment. On the fundamental side, precision GW astronomy will open countless possibilities for understanding the standard model of particle physics (and its extensions), gravity and cosmology. By itself, however, precision is not knowledge. To harness the power of these measurements, a groundbreaking framework is urgently needed to solve the very nonlinear equations of GR and develop waveform models to unprecedented accuracy, and to convert these results into concrete interpretation tools. GWSky will leverage the world-leading expertise of its PIs in astrophysics, GW-source modeling, particle physics and GR, and recent paradigm shifts to build an overarching framework answering a fundamental question: When, inevitably, an anomaly in a GW signal is identified, what is it? A gravitational effect not predicted by GR? The influence of nearby matter? Or merely an imprecise calculation of the expected signal? Even tiny deviations from GR would shake physics to its core, but to claim a deviation from it, one needs to filter out first the contributions from the astrophysical environment, instrumental artifacts and systematic modeling uncertainties. GWSky will provide tools to disentangle these contributions, enabling precision GW astronomy with upcoming observational runs, and new facilities on the ground and in space.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyastrophysics
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyphysical cosmology
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC-SYG - HORIZON ERC Synergy GrantsHost institution
80539 Munchen
Germany