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May 24 (4:00PM) in the 2nd Floor Conference Room in Dearborn Speaker: Ben Owen (Penn State University) “Why LIGO results are already interesting” Recent theoretical developments indicate that rotating neutron stars might be stronger sources of periodic gravitational waves than previously thought. LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) has a chance of detecting such a signal right now rather than next decade. A detection could provide unique information on the composition and structure of a star. Even without a detection, LIGO can place direct upper limits on gravitational waves from several types of neutron stars which beat the indirect upper limits derived from photon astronomy. Since most LIGO searches for signals from neutron stars are computationally limited, photon astronomy can provide information on where to look which directly increases LIGO's science reach. I survey the observational and data analysis issues associated with different LIGO searches and point to the astrophysical payoffs. I describe the interactions of these searches with photon astronomy and list opportunities for gravitational wave and photon astronomy to complement each other. |