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Gravity Wave Research

Gravitational Wave Research

Project Leader:  Susan Scott, ANU

Description

This project is deploying grid technologies gravitational wave research conducted by the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational-wave Analysis (ACIGA).  The project is establishing a National Gravitational Wave Research Grid which will enhance the collection and analysis of data within Australia, the sharing of this data with international collaborators, and the enhancement of data access and retrieval from these collaborators.  The data obtained from interferometric detectors is the prime source of detection of gravity wave events, whilst environmental data is used to calibrate detector data and enable filtering of false positives and other noise from interferometer output.

The aim of this project is to develop a Gravitational Wave Research grid infrastructure that will focus on enhancing the access to data obtained from international gravitational wave collaborators such as LIGO, and VIRGO detectors.  This project will involve constructing a grid infrastructure based on the LDR toolkit, and enhancing the capabilities of this toolkit where interaction with Frame format files (the basic data format for gravity wave data) is concerned.  LDR will be used to tie together multiple processing and storage resources at the ANU (including the APAC MDSS as a primary storage resource) in the first instance, and will incorporate additional resources from gravitational wave researchers in other Australian institutions as it matures.  

The second major component is to set up the tools and infrastructure on the APAC systems, in particular at the National facility that will allow data analysis pipelines to be installed.  This will involve a range of tools coordinated through the LIGO consortium.  Where some of these tools require specific operating installations the project will investigate how a computational grid could be used in conjunction with the data grid to perform the analysis.

Achievements

2004
  • Prototype grid infrastructure installed and functional at ACIGA.
  • Development for LDR enhancements based on GT4 alpha complete.  Testing to begin shortly.
1H2005
  • Trialled the LDR/XIO enhancements based on GT4 to fine-tune it in advance of deployment internationally
2H2005
  • Completed the implementation a software package called Triiad, a data grid replication tool with awareness of gravitational wave FRAME data formats to facilitate mirroring select subsets of large datasets.  Triiad uses the Globus XIO interface and the Framelib API to improve on the facilities offered by the LIGO Lightweight Data Replicator service LDR.  This is a major milestone.
  • Early discussions have taken place with the APAC Grid team to integrate services with the National Grid.
  • A related research project was awarded an ARC eResearch Special Research Initiative grant.

Plan and Milestones for 2006

1H2006
  • Working with APAC II/DataGrid program to set up interoperable grid set up for large data transfers with LDR from LIGO. 
  • Work with the APAC National Facility to set up a production method for data analysis of the gravitational wave data.
  • Both of the previous milestones will then form the basis of a gravitational wave burst search on gravitational signal wave channels that will be performed on the APAC National Facility.
2H2006
  • The LDR data grid will be extended to VIRGO to collect signal and environmental channels.
  • Analysis begins for global environmental corrolations including magnetometer, seismometer, and power supply monitoring channels from LIGO, VIRGO, ANU.

Participating Organisation

  • Australian National University

Resources for 2006

  • Total 2006 resources available to the project are 0.95 efts (ANU: 0.95).
  • APAC is providing funds to support 0.50 efts (ANU: 0.50).
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