When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein's theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors' sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe--making the detection of gravitational wave sources a daily occurrence rather than weekly or monthly. Scientists hope this will launch a new era of precision astronomy, because combining information from multiple kinds of signals from space is a much more powerful way to study the universe. But realizing this goal will require a radical re-thinking of existing methods used to search for and find gravitational waves. Recently, Argonne National Laboratory computational scientist Eliu Huerta, along with collaborators from the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NVIDIA and IBM, developed a new artificial intelligence framework that allows for accelerated, scalable and reproducible detection of gravitational waves.

When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein's theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. Five years later, numerous gravitational wave sources have been detected, including the first observation of two colliding neutron stars in gravitational and electromagnetic waves. As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors' sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe, thereby making the detection of gravitational wave sources a daily occurrence. This discovery deluge will launch the era of precision astronomy that takes into consideration extrasolar messenger phenomena, including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos and cosmic rays. Realizing this goal, however, will require a radical re-thinking of existing methods used to search for and find gravitational waves.

Furthermore, these AI algorithms would only require an inexpensive GPU—like those found in video gaming systems—to process data faster than real …

IMAGE: Scientific visualization of a numerical relativity simulation that describes the collision of two black holes consistent with the binary black hole merger GW170814. The simulation was done on the Theta... view more When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein's theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. Five years later, numerous gravitational wave sources have been detected, including the first observation of two colliding neutron stars in gravitational and electromagnetic waves. As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors' sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe, thereby making the detection of gravitational wave sources a daily occurrence. This discovery deluge will launch the era of precision astronomy that takes into consideration extrasolar messenger phenomena, including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos and cosmic rays.

When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein's theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. Five years later, numerous gravitational wave sources have been detected, including the first observation of two colliding neutron stars in gravitational and electromagnetic waves. As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors' sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe, thereby making the detection of gravitational wave sources a daily occurrence. This discovery deluge will launch the era of precision astronomy that takes into consideration extrasolar messenger phenomena, including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos and cosmic rays. Realizing this goal, however, will require a radical re-thinking of existing methods used to search for and find gravitational waves.

Now, with its machine learning model, the team is once again enhancing LIGO by allowing engineers there to distinguish between terrestrial glitches and signals of gravitational waves. Szabolcs Márka, who has worked on LIGO research for two decades and is married to Zsuzca, said the machine learning method represents a breakthrough in astronomical research that will allow for more "fascinating discoveries about the fabric of the cosmos." Robert Colgan and John Wright are adept at data science, he said, while he and Zsuzsa are astrophysicists, a combination of skills that make for "an amazing and transformational team."

December 23, 2016 --More than 100 years ago, in 1915, Albert Einstein predicted that cosmic collisions between massive astronomical bodies would create ripples in spacetime, gravitational waves that could be detected from Earth. Yet it wasn't until February 2016 that Einstein's prediction was confirmed, after twin detectors in Washington and Louisiana detected waves from a collision that occurred 1.3 billion years ago. The implications of this discovery are wide ranging. Scientists are already preparing to expand their understanding of gravitational waves by examining theories about black holes, and using three new Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) spacecraft to trace black hole mergers with greater precision. In opening the door to future research and confirming a more than century-old prediction about the universe, February's discovery by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has proved deserving of the title of the most significant scientific discovery this year, Science magazine announced on Thursday.