'Einstein@Home,' Revolutionary Astrophysics Project, Directed by UWM Prof

MILWAUKEE – What’s your computer doing while you sleep or go to work this week? Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), the California Institute of Technology, and the Albert Einstein Institute want to use that extra computing power on a quest to make history in the field of astrophysics.

In a project called “Einstein@Home,” anyone with a home computer can participate in an astrophysical treasure hunt. The project was officially announced at the American Association for the Feb. 19 Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

“Einstein@Home” borrows idle “cycles” (computer power available when no one is using it) to scan massive amounts of data collected by gravitational wave detectors originating from three observatories – two in the U.S. (called LIGO) and one in Germany.

The objective is to find the first physical evidence of one of Einstein’s greatest predictions – the existence of gravitational waves, says Bruce Allen, UWM professor of physics who is principal investigator on the federally funded project.

Why are gravitational waves so important that you’d go to so much trouble to find them? “Most of what exists in space is not visible,” says Allen. “This process gives us another mechanism for learning about black holes and other space events firsthand.”

Bruce Allen

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by events in the universe such as exploding stars (supernovae) or extremely dense, rapidly rotating stars (pulsars). They carry new information about their sources and the nature of gravity itself, says Allen, and will help scientists “see” invisible events in space by mathematically mapping the ripples.

LIGO observatory instruments work by generating two laser beams and then separating them, each encased in a concrete tube which is the world’s largest artificial vacuum. After being reflected off mirrors to form an L-shaped path, the light is recombined. When a gravitational wave passes by, it changes the lengths of the paths these laser beams follow by miniscule amounts. These discrepancies are mathematical indicators that LIGO has found something.

But to run all the numbers to make the comparisons, Allen says they needed enormous computing ability... one that required pooling resources. This approach is called “distributed computing” and is gaining popularity in many scientific fields. In fact, Einstein@Home was constructed with input from the architects of the SETI@Home project which searches radio telescope data for signs of extraterrestrial life.

This year, dubbed the International Year of Physics by the United Nations, the American Physical Society and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration are celebrating the centennial of Einstein’s “miracle year” – when he published three groundbreaking scientific advances including the Special Theory of Relativity – by launching Einstein@Home.

Already 31,000 people have volunteered their computer down time, says Allen, and that number was increasing by 2,000 a day immediately after the announcement. He hopes the number of volunteers eventually rises to hundreds of thousands.

Allen also directs the UWM LIGO Scientific Collaboration group. A native of Boston, Allen received his undergraduate degree from MIT and then went to Cambridge as a Marshall scholar, studying under Stephen Hawking.

To learn more go to http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ or http://www.physics2005.org/.

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