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  1. ABSTRACT

    Owing to the forecasted improved sensitivity of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, new research avenues will become accessible. This is the case for gravitational-wave strong lensing, predicted with a non-negligible observation rate in the coming years. However, because one needs to investigate all the event pairs in the data, searches for strongly lensed gravitational waves are often computationally heavy, and one faces high false-alarm rates. In this paper, we present upgrades made to the golum software, making it more reliable while increasing its speed by re-casting the look-up table, imposing a sample control, and implementing symmetric runs on the two lensed images. We show how the recovered posteriors have improved coverage of the parameter space and how we increase the pipeline’s stability. Finally, we show the results obtained by performing a joint analysis of all the events reported until the GWTC-3 catalogue, finding similar conclusions to the ones presented in the literature.

     
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  2. ABSTRACT

    Gravitational lensing describes the bending of the trajectories of light and gravitational waves due to the gravitational potential of a massive object. Strong lensing by galaxies can create multiple images with different overall amplifications, arrival times, and image types. If, furthermore, the gravitational wave encounters a star along its trajectory, microlensing will take place. Previously, it has been shown that the effects of microlenses on strongly-lensed type-I images could be negligible in practice, at least in the low magnification regime. In this work, we study the same effect on type-II strongly-lensed images by computing the microlensing amplification factor. As opposed to being magnified, type-II images are typically demagnified. Moreover, microlensing on top of type-II images induces larger mismatches with un-microlensed waveforms than type-I images. These results are broadly consistent with recent literature and serve to confirm the findings. In addition, we investigate the possibility of detecting and analysing microlensed signals through Bayesian parameter estimation with an isolated point mass lens template, which has been adopted in recent parameter estimation literature. In particular, we simulate gravitational waves microlensed by a microlens embedded in a galaxy potential near moderately magnified type-I and II macroimages, with variable lens masses, source parameters and macromagnifcations. Generally, an isolated point mass model could be used as an effective template to detect a type-II microlensed image but not for type-I images, demonstrating the necessity for more realistic microlensing search templates.

     
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  3. ABSTRACT

    Since the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015, gravitational-wave astronomy has emerged as a rapidly advancing field that holds great potential for studying the cosmos, from probing the properties of black holes to testing the limits of our current understanding of gravity. One important aspect of gravitational-wave astronomy is the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, where massive intervening objects can bend and magnify gravitational waves, providing a unique way to probe the distribution of matter in the Universe, as well as finding applications to fundamental physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. However, current models for gravitational-wave millilensing—a specific form of lensing where small-scale astrophysical objects can split a gravitational wave signal into multiple copies—are often limited to simple isolated lenses, which is not realistic for complex lensing scenarios. In this paper, we present a novel phenomenological approach to incorporate millilensing in data analysis in a model-independent fashion. Our approach enables the recovery of arbitrary lens configurations without the need for extensive computational lens modelling, making it a more accurate and computationally efficient tool for studying the distribution of matter in the Universe using gravitational-wave signals. When gravitational-wave lensing observations become possible, our method could provide a powerful tool for studying complex lens configurations in the future.

     
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  4. Abstract

    Electrons with energies ≥40 keV can be found at low density in many different regions of Earth's magnetosphere. A litany of fundamental questions in space physics have focused on the acceleration mechanism of these particles, given that the sources of plasma are the relatively cool ionosphere and solar wind (∼1–100s eV). Upgraded global solar wind‐magnetosphere simulations which can resolve mesoscale dynamics have the ability to enhance our understanding of these high energy particles. This is because the energization of particles often takes the form of a sequence of discrete steps, potentially occurring in different regions of the magnetosphere and due to both meso‐ and global‐scale processes. First, brief results are presented from the Grid Agnostic MHD for Extended Research Applications (GAMERA) global simulation on the structure of the cusp diamagnetic cavity for northward and southward IMF. Then, the Conservative Hamiltonian Integrator for Magnetospheric Particles (CHIMP) framework, with both guiding center and full Lorentz integrators, evolves necessary parameters such as the energy and pitch angle of electron test particles to investigate particle acceleration inside the cavity, as well as the ultimate fate of electrons accelerated inside the cavity. The simulation shows that particles can gain ≥ 10 keV inside the cavity and subsequently leak into the magnetosheath or onto dipolar field lines where they execute different types of bounce motion. The distribution of test particles initialized inside the cavity is compared with Magnetospheric Multi‐Scale (MMS) observations.

     
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  5. Abstract

    We present high‐resolution Resolute Bay Incoherent Scatter Radar (RISR) measurements in the cusp region during an IMF southward turning. The simultaneous RISR‐N and RISR‐C operation provided 3‐D observations of the dayside polar region, and offered an opportunity to identify the cusp dynamics and polar cap patch formation. Associated with the IMF southward turning, the F‐region density and temperature increased in the cusp, and the increase was particularly evident in the topside ionosphere. The high‐density plasma drifted into the polar cap by an enhanced poleward convection, and became a polar cap patch. The patch plasma was initially dominated by density originating in the cusp, and then later the subauroral ionospheric plasma also contributed to the density enhancement. Weak upflows were present but their contribution within the RISR altitude range was minor. We suggest that the patch source region switches due to dynamic variations of the cusp precipitation and convection from lower latitudes. RISR also detected a flow vortex embedded in the large‐scale convection, which is likely a poleward moving auroral form (PMAF) signature. Joule heating peaked in the cusp E and lower F‐regions. The F‐region Pedersen conductivity increased more than the Hall conductivity, and the high conductivity region extended poleward associated with the patch density enhancement. A 1‐D cusp simulation reproduced the density and temperature enhancements by soft electron precipitation, indicating the importance of soft electron precipitation for the cusp dynamics and the initial part of the patch formation.

     
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