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关于 Einstein@Home 项目的详细介绍如下：（英文）
转自：http://www.physics2005.org/events/einsteinathome/index.html
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Einstein@Home
Albert Einstein discovered long ago that we are adrift in a universe filled with waves from space. Colliding black holes, collapsing stars, and spinning pulsars create ripples in the fabric of space and time that subtly distort the world around us. These gravitational waves have eluded scientists for nearly a century. Exciting new experiments will let them catch the waves in action and open a whole new window on the universe - but they need your help to do it!
What is Einstein@Home?
What are GEO 600 and LIGO?
What is a gravitational wave?
How can you help?
What platforms will be compatible?
What should you do?
What is Einstein@Home?
Pulsar-driven Crab Nebula, as photographed by the orbiting
Chandra x-ray Observatory
Einstein@Home is a project developed to search data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and from the GEO 600 gravitational wave observatory in Germany for signals coming from rapidly rotating neutron stars, known as pulsars. Scientists believe that some pulsars may not be perfectly spherical, and if so, they should emit characteristic gravitational waves, which LIGO and GEO 600 will begin to detect in coming months.
Bruce Allen of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's (UWM) LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) group is leading the development of the Einstein@Home project.
Einstein@Home is one, small part of the LSC scientific program. It is being set up as a distributed computing project, which means that it relies on computer time donated by private computer users like you to search for pulsars.
What are GEO 600 and LIGO?
GEO 600 is a gravitational wave observatory in Hanover, Germany built by an international collaboration of scientists from the UK and Germany. LIGO consists of two US facilities, one located in Livingston, Louisiana and the other in Hanford, Washington.
Aerial view of LIGO’s Livingston, LA facility
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
Aerial view of LIGO’s Hanford, WA facility
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
All three observatories measure ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves. The waves are detected with perpendicular pairs of laser beams located at each facility.
Adjusting the mirrors at Hanford
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
When a gravitational wave passes by, it can change the lengths of the paths the laser beams follow by tiny amounts. LIGO and GEO 600 scientists observe gravitational waves by comparing these changes in the laser beam paths. Longer laser beams mean greater sensitivity. The lasers beams travel back and forth between pairs of mirrors that are 600 meters apart in GEO and four kilometers apart in the LIGO facilities, which makes these observatories very sensitive. In fact LIGO should be able to measure changes in the laser beam paths as small as one-hundred-millionth the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
What is a gravitational wave?
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by events in our galaxy and throughout universe, such as black hole collisions, shockwaves from the cores of exploding supernovas, and rotating pulsars. These ripples in the space-time fabric travel toward Earth, bringing with them information about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity.
Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity, but only now in the 21st Century has technology advanced enough for scientists to detect and study them. Although gravitational waves have not yet been detected directly, their influence on a binary pulsar (two neutron stars orbiting each other) has been measured accurately, and was found to be in good agreement with original predictions. Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies in this field.
How can you help?
Einstein@Home will rely on private owners of PCs, like you, to donate computer time to the analysis of LIGO data. All you’ll have to do is install a small, screen saver program to your computer. The screen saver will automatically download a tiny portion of the enormous data set that LIGO will collect. When your computer is otherwise idle, it will analyze the data and send it back to the LIGO scientists. The screen saver only runs when you’re not using the computer, or when you choose to manually turn the program on. Einstein@Home will not affect your computer’s performance.
We are fortunate to have David Anderson, the pioneering developer of SETI@Home, helping us put the Einstein@Home project together. SETI@Home is a revolutionary distributed computing program that searches data from the Arecibo radio observatory for signs of extraterrestrial life. The total computing power donated to SETI@Home currently far exceeds the capabilities of any super computer yet built.
What platforms will be compatible?
The screensavers are being developed for Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems.
What should you do?
Sign up to be notified when Einstein@Home is ready to go live! We can't send you the screen saver right now - it will be available as part of the World Year of Physics celebration in early 2005. But if you get on the list, you'll be among the first to know when everything is ready. We hope as many as a million people will join the effort, which means we need to compile a list of potential users as soon as possible. Einstein@Home is real - and important - science, at the grassroots level.
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发表于 2005-5-12 22:26:45
发表于 2005-7-31 13:29:05
