Octahedron configuration for a displacement noise-cancelling gravitational wave detector in space
We study for the first time a three-dimensional octahedron constellation for a space-based gravitational wave detector, which we call the octahedral gravitational observatory (OGO). With six spacecraft the constellation is able to remove laser frequency noise and acceleration disturbances from the gravitational wave signal without needing LISA-like drag-free control, thereby simplifying the payloads and placing less stringent demands on the thrusters. We generalize LISA’s time-delay interferometry to displacement noise free interferometry (DFI) by deriving a set of generators for those combinations of the data streams that cancel laser and acceleration noise. However, the three-dimensional configuration makes orbit selection complicated. So far, only a halo orbit near the Lagrangian point L1 has been found to be stable enough, and this allows only short arms up to 1400 km. We derive the sensitivity curve of OGO with this arm length, resulting in a peak sensitivity of about \(2\times 10^{-23}\,\) Hz \({}^{-1/2}\) near 100 Hz. We compare this version of OGO to the present generation of ground-based detectors and to some future detectors. We also investigate the scientific potentials of such a detector, which include observing gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences, the stochastic background, and pulsars as well as the possibility to test alternative theories of gravity. We find a mediocre performance level for this short arm length detector, between those of initial and advanced ground-based detectors. Thus, actually building a space-based detector of this specific configuration does not seem very efficient. However, when alternative orbits that allow for longer detector arms can be found, a detector with much improved science output could be constructed using the octahedron configuration and DFI solutions demonstrated in this chapter. Also, since the sensitivity of a DFI detector is limited mainly by shot noise, we discuss how the overall sensitivity could be improved by using advanced technologies that reduce this particular noise source.

title: First stage of LISA data processing: Clock synchronization and arm-length determination via a hybrid-extended Kalman filter
abstract: In this paper, we describe a hybrid-extended Kalman filter algorithm to synchronize the clocks and to precisely determine the inter-spacecraft distances for space-based gravitational wave detectors, such as (e)LISA. According to the simulation, the algorithm has significantly improved the ranging accuracy and synchronized the clocks, making the phase-meter raw measurements qualified for time- delay interferometry algorithms.

title: The Mock LISA data challenges: from challenge 1B to challenge 3
abstract: The Mock LISA Data Challenges are a programme to demonstrate and encourage the development of LISA data-analysis capabilities, tools and techniques. At the time of this workshop, three rounds of challenges had been completed, and the next was about to start. In this paper we provide a critical analysis of the entries to the latest completed round, Challenge 1B. The entries confirm the consolidation of a range of data-analysis techniques for galactic and massive-black-hole binaries, and they include the first convincing examples of detection and parameter estimation of extreme-mass-ratio inspiral sources. In this paper we also introduce the next round, Challenge 3. Its data sets feature more realistic waveform models (e.g., galactic binaries may now chirp, and massive-black-hole binaries may precess due to spin interactions), as well as new source classes (bursts from cosmic strings, isotropic stochastic backgrounds) and more complicated nonsymmetric instrument noise.

title: A scientific case study of an advanced LISA mission
abstract: A brief status report of an ongoing scientific case study of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Antenna (ALIA) mission is presented. Key technology requirements and primary science objectives of the mission are covered in the study. Possible descope options for the mission and the corresponding compromise in science are also considered and compared. Our preliminary study indicates that ALIA holds promise in mapping out the mass and spin distribution of intermediate mass black holes possibly present in dense star clusters at low redshift as well as in shedding important light on the structure formation in the early Universe.

title: EMRI data analysis with a phenomenological waveform
abstract: Extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) (capture and inspiral of a compact stellar mass object into a Massive Black Hole (MBH)) are among the most interesting objects for the gravitational wave astronomy. It is a very challenging task to detect those sources with the accurate estimation parameters of binaries primarily due to a large number of the secondary maxima on the likelihood surface. Search algorithms based on the matched filtering require computation of the gravitational waveform hundreds of thousands of times, which is currently not feasible with the most accurate (faithful) models of EMRIs. Here we propose to use a phenomenological template family which covers a large range of EMRIs parameter space. We use these phenomenological templates to detect the signal in the simulated data and then, assuming a particular EMRI model, estimate the physical parameters of the binary. We have separated the detection problem, which is done in a model-independent way, from the parameter estimation. For the latter one, we need to adopt the model for inspiral in order to map phenomenological parameters onto the physical parameter characterizing EMRIs.

title: Quantum Wave Equation of Photon
abstract: In this paper, we give the quantum wave equations of single photon when it is in the vacuum and medium. With these wave equations, we can study light interference and diffraction with the approach of quantum theory, and also can study the quantum property of photon when it is in a general crystal and photonic crystal. Otherwise, it can be applied in quantum optics and condensed matter feld.

title: The WFIRST Galaxy Survey Exposure Time Calculator
abstract: This document describes the exposure time calculator for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) high-latitude survey. The calculator works in both imaging and spectroscopic modes. In addition to the standard ETC functions (e.g. background and S/N determination), the calculator integrates over the galaxy population and forecasts the density and redshift distribution of galaxy shapes usable for weak lensing (in imaging mode) and the detected emission lines (in spectroscopic mode). The source code is made available for public use.

title: Cosmological constant and advanced gravitational wave detectors
abstract: Interferometric gravitational wave detectors could measure the frequency sweep of a binary inspiral (characterized by its chirp mass) to high accuracy. The observed chirp mass is the intrinsic chirp mass of the binary source multiplied by (1+z), where z is the redshift of the source. Assuming a nonzero cosmological constant, we compute the expected redshift distribution of observed events for an advanced LIGO detector. We find that the redshift distribution has a robust and sizable dependence on the cosmological constant; the data from advanced LIGO detectors could provide an independent measurement of the cosmological constant.

title: Using multipoles of the correlation function to measure H(z), DA(z) and β(z) from Sloan Digital Sky Survey luminous red galaxies
abstract: Galaxy clustering data can be used to measure the cosmic expansion history H(z), the angular-diameter distance D_A(z), and the linear redshift-space distortion parameter beta(z). Here we present a method for using effective multipoles of the galaxy two-point correlation function (\xi_0(s), \xi_2(s), \xi}_4(s), and \xi_6(s), with s denoting the comoving separation) to measure H(z), D_A(z)$, and beta(z), and validate it using LasDamas mock galaxy catalogs. Our definition of effective multipoles explicitly incorporates the discreteness of measurements, and treats the measured correlation function and its theoretical model on the same footing. We find that for the mock data, \xi_0+\xi_2+\xi_4 captures nearly all the information, and gives significantly stronger constraints on H(z), D_A(z), and beta(z), compared to using only \xi_0+\xi_2. 
We apply our method to the sample of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) without assuming a dark energy model or a flat Universe. We find that \xi}_4(s) deviates on scales of s<60Mpc/h from the measurement from mock data (in contrast to \xi_0(s), \xi_2(s), and \xi_6(s)), thus we only use \xi_0+\xi_2 for our fiducial constraints. We obtain {H(0.35), D_A(0.35), Omega_mh^2, beta(z)} = {79.6_{-8.7}^{+8.3} km/s/Mpc, 1057_{-87}^{+88}Mpc, 0.103\pm0.015, 0.44\pm0.15} using \xi_0+\xi_2. We find that H(0.35)r_s(z_d)/c and D_A(0.35)/r_s(z_d) (where r_s(z_d) is the sound horizon at the drag epoch) are more tightly constrained: {H(0.35)r_s(z_d)/c, D_A(0.35)/r_s(z_d)} = {0.0437_{-0.0043}^{+0.0041}, 6.48_{-0.43}^{+0.44}\} using \xi_0+\xi_2.

title: A coherent method for the detection and parameter estimation of continuous gravitational wave signals using a pulsar timing array
abstract: The use of a high precision pulsar timing array is a promising approach to detecting gravitational waves in the very low frequency regime (10{sup –6}-10{sup –9} Hz) that is complementary to ground-based efforts (e.g., LIGO, Virgo) at high frequencies (∼10-10{sup 3} Hz) and space-based ones (e.g., LISA) at low frequencies (10{sup –4}-10{sup –1} Hz). One of the target sources for pulsar timing arrays is individual supermassive black hole binaries which are expected to form in galactic mergers. In this paper, a likelihood-based method for detection and parameter estimation is presented for a monochromatic continuous gravitational wave signal emitted by such a source. The so-called pulsar terms in the signal that arise due to the breakdown of the long-wavelength approximation are explicitly taken into account in this method. In addition, the method accounts for equality and inequality constraints involved in the semi-analytical maximization of the likelihood over a subset of the parameters. The remaining parameters are maximized over numerically using Particle Swarm Optimization. Thus, the method presented here solves the monochromatic continuous wave detection and parameter estimation problem without invoking some of the approximations that have been used in earlier studies.

title: Model-independent reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum from WMAP data
abstract: Reconstructing the shape of the primordial power spectrum in a model-independent way from cosmological data is a useful consistency check on what is usually assumed regarding early universe physics. It is also our primary window to unknown physics during the inflationary era. Using a power-law form for the primordial power spectrum Pin(k) and constraining the scalar spectral index and its running, in 2003 Peiris and coworkers found that the first-year Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe (WMAP) data seem to indicate a preferred scale in Pin(k). We use two complementary methods, the wavelet band power method of Mukherjee & Wang and the top-hat binning method of Wang, Spergel, & Strauss, to reconstruct Pin(k) as a free function from cosmic microwave background (CMB) data alone (WMAP, CBI, and ACBAR), or from CMB data together with large-scale structure data (2dFGRS and PCSz). The shape of the reconstructed Pin(k) is consistent with scale invariance, although it allows some indication of a preferred scale at k~0.01 Mpc-1. While consistent with the possible evidence for a running of the scalar spectral index found by the WMAP team, our results highlight the need of more stringent and independent constraints on cosmological parameters (the Hubble constant in particular) in order to more definitively constrain deviations of Pin(k) from scale invariance without making assumptions about the inflationary model.