Date of Award
May 2021
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Physics
First Advisor
Jolien Creighton
Abstract
Gravitational waves (GWs) radiated by compact binary coalescences (CBCs) carry useful information about their sources. These source properties obtained via the parameter estimation technique can help us to answer a wide range of physics problems. In this dissertation, I will present three major research projects. Firstly, binary neutron stars (BNSs) detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are ideal to study the equation of state (EoS). The EoS enters GW waveforms through tidal deformability, which can be measured by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. By performing Bayesian model selection, we can test plausible models from a large set of proposed EoSs. Secondly, the time delay between GW detectors can be used to measure the speed of gravitational waves. Although the uncertainty of results produced by this method is larger than using the time delay between GW and gamma-ray burst (GRB), it does provide a model independent means to measure the speed of gravitational waves. Finally, gravitational waves that lensed by galaxies or galaxy clusters are expected to produce multiple images with the time delay ranging from minutes to months. The fact that lensed GW signals are sharing some source properties allows us to identify potential lensed GW events by comparing Bayesian evidences between individual parameter estimation runs and joint parameter estimation runs.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Xiaoshu, "Extracting Information from Compact Binary Coalescences with Gravitational Waves" (2021). Theses and Dissertations. 2692.
https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2692