Speaker: Rhiannon Udall

Host: Prof. Laura Cadonati / Dr. Surabhi Sachdev

Title: The anti-aligned spin of GW191109: Glitch Mitigation and its Implications

Abstract: 

Abstract: One of the most interesting events in the third LVK observing run was GW191109, which was found to have spins which were confidently anti-aligned with the orbital angular momentum - one of only two such cases which has been released - and high masses. This implies GW191109 may be of dynamical origin, making it our first probe of this formation channel. However, GW191109 was coincident with a transient noise source known as a "glitch," which may affect these conclusions dramatically. I will discuss the origins and modelling of the glitch in question, and work I have done to fully characterize the astrophysical properties of GW191109 in the presence of this glitch. If time allows I will also discuss additional aspects of glitch modeling, and statistical tests to identify the impact of glitches on parameter estimation.

Bio:

Rhiannon is a fifth year graduate student at Caltech studying gravitational wave astrophysics, and a member of the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra collaboration. As an undergraduate she attended Georgia Tech, where she did research with Laura Cadonati and Deirdre Shoemaker on the inference of compact binary source properties. At Caltech she joined the LIGO Lab and is advised by Alan Weinstein. Much of her work has focused on modeling glitches in the LIGO detectors, understanding how glitches impact the inference of source properties, and developing techniques to mitigate them. Additionally, she has done substantial work on the development of data management infrastructure for the LVK collaboration, and the preparation of the forthcoming gravitational wave transient catalogs.