Grey
October 6, 2005, 2:26pm
1
So according to this press release short gamma ray bursts can be tied to neutron star collisions and/or black hole/stellar companion collisions.
I was curious if anyone knew if LIGO had any results that lined up with the data mentioned in the paper? Or are these GRB sources too far away to produce a measurable gravity wave?
Squink
October 6, 2005, 3:11pm
2
This burst was too distant for LIGO to pick up, however:
The July 9 burst was about two billion light years away. A big merger closer to the Earth could be detected by the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). If Swift detects a nearby short burst, LIGO scientists could go back and check the data with a precise time and location in mind.
“This is good news for LIGO,” said Dr. Albert Lazzarini, of LIGO Laboratory at Caltech. “The connection between short bursts and mergers firms up projected rates for LIGO, and they appear to be at the high end of previous estimates. Also, observations provide tantalizing hints of black hole - neutron star mergers, which have not been detected before. During LIGO’s upcoming yearlong observation we may detect gravitational waves from such an event.”
Grey
October 6, 2005, 3:55pm
3
Well that’s hopeful considering that back in 1997 LIGO expected to
locate as many as 300 neutron star mergers per year, but “a single observation would be phenomenal,” Swesty said. “LIGO, long prior to coalescense, will detect masses of the individual objects. That, combined with what we learn from the coalescense signal in the models, could really help us to pin down the structure of neutron stars.”
It’ll make it that much easier if the upper bound turns out to be realistic.