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Mapping the Universe with Gravitational Waves

Project description

Mapping space with gravitational waves

Up to now, mapping the cosmos has relied on light. Now, a new frontier is opening with gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in spacetime from cataclysmic events. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GWSKY project aims to harness these waves to chart the Universe’s large-scale structure while offering insights into dark matter, dark energy, and gravity itself. The project aims to deliver a realistic framework. To do so, it will create mock catalogues of gravitational wave sources, thereby refining sky maps to cut through noise, and forecasting the synergy between future gravitational wave detectors and galaxy surveys. By bridging theory and practical observation, GWSKY could redefine how we understand the Universe’s hidden architecture.

Objective

While scientists observed the night sky with telescopes for centuries, only in the past decade have we began to probe it with gravitational waves (GWs). Next-generation GW observatories, if properly exploited in synergy with current and future galaxy surveys, have the potential of mapping the structure of the Universe in a fully independent and complementary fashion with respect to what has been done so far. In particular, by studying GW propagation across cosmological distances and GW sources spatial distribution, we can shed light on dark matter and dark energy properties, and also on what the correct theory of gravity is. Even if numerous studies have already investigated the theoretical feasibility of this kind of analysis under relatively simplistic assumptions, none of them have ever provided a framework that demonstrates how this goal is, in fact, achieved. The purpose of this project is to bridge the gap between the current idealised analysis and an actual realistic implementation, ultimately capable of informing us about the underlying properties of these GW sources and our Universe. In other words, I aim to provide an end-to-end framework that fully characterizes how GWs can be used to trace the three-dimensional large scale structure of the Universe. This project is divided into three main stages. First, I will provide a robust methodology to create realistic mock catalogs of GW sources spatial distribution for different classes of compact objects. Second, I will develop a statistical procedure to create optimal GW sky maps both from detected and undetected GW events, aiming to minimize the amount of statistical and systematic noise. Finally, I will forecast the capability of future GW experiments in synergy with galaxy surveys to characterize different populations of compact objects. Completing this program will allow me to not only shape the design of future experiments, but also to provide a starting point for real-data analyses.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
Net EU contribution
€ 209 483,28
Address
VIA 8 FEBBRAIO 2
35122 Padova
Italy
Region
Nord-Est Veneto Padova
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data