Group Leaders: Ben Farr (Astro, U. Chicago), Soumen Lahiri (Stat, NCSU)
SAMSI Webmaster: Hyungsuk Tak, David Jones
Weekly Meetings: SAMSI Room 259 / Friday 10:00-Noon ET
Description: The characterization of time-domain data is a fundamental component of astronomy. We will explore new techniques for modeling such data, both evenly and unevenly sampled in time, with the goal of enabling new discoveries in exoplanet and gravitational wave astronomy.
Big Questions:
- Gravitational wave detectors are typically assumed to have stationary and Gaussian noise. However, the noise spectral density changes on long timescales and there are frequent short duration noise artifacts (i.e., “glitches”) that can mimic gravitational wave signals. How can we build more robust noise models and exploit information in auxiliary environmental channels?
- Ground-based photometric surveys, with billions of irregular light curves, detect stellar variability from a multitude of sources, from planetary transits, to supernovae. How do we effectively separate these classes in irregularly sampled data?
- How can we maximize the sensitivity of space-based photometric surveys for detecting small planets in the presence of stellar activity?
- How can we measure planet masses robustly despite observational data with outliers (due to stellar activity affecting either Doppler data or transit times)?
News and Updates: Coming Soon…
SAMSI Directorate Liaison: Sujit Ghosh
Questions: [email protected]