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Mapping the Gravitational Wave Background

Arianna Renzini (Imperial College London) // November 7, 2019


Abstract: Since the direct detection of gravitational waves in 2016, we have focused on setting up a pipeline aimed at measuring anisotropies in the intensity of gravitational waves on the sky. We have been particularly interested in mapping the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB), which is simply defined as the incoherent overlap of all signals which are unresolved by the detector (in this case, LIGO+Virgo). Different backgrounds may then be described and investigated depending on their nature. In this talk I will first describe and contextualise our map-making method, then present results. Specifically, I will illustrate maps presented in our recent paper on stochastic GWB sky maps from Advanced LIGO O1 and O2 data sets. Time permitting, I will also introduce our new work on detecting GWBs with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA).

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