MPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

🥳 Happy 20th birthday, Einstein@Home! 🎉

The distributed volunteer computing project was launched on this day in 2005.

Since the launch of @einsteinathome on 19 February 2005, nearly half a million participants from around the world have donated idle computing time on their PCs and smartphones to search for astrophysical signals from spinning neutron stars – small, massive, and exotic remnants of exploded stars.

Einstein@Home is one of the world’s largest volunteer computing projects and a scientific success story: It has discovered more than 90 new neutron stars, some of them very unusual, through their radio and gamma-ray pulsations. It is also conducting some of the most sensitive searches for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars in @LIGO data. Finding the elusive waves would provide a new astronomical tool for studying extreme gravity and matter and fundamental physics.

ℹ️ https://www.aei.mpg.de/1226437/happy-20th-birthday-einstein-home

➡️ Join the fun at https://einsteinathome.org/join

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #OnThisDay #OTD #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Happy 20th birthday, Einstein@Home!

The volunteer distributed computing project Einstein@Home celebrates its 20th birthday. Einstein@Home is one of the world’s largest volunteer computing projects and a scientific success story: It has discovered more than 90 new neutron stars, some of them very unusual, through their radio and gamma-ray pulsations. It is also conducting some of the most sensitive searches for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars in LIGO data. Finding the elusive waves would provide a new astronomical tool for studying extreme gravity and matter and fundamental physics.

Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

Bruce Allen, director of @einsteinathome and director at the @mpi_grav in Hannover, Germany, recalls:

“I had read about SETI@home in 1999 and thought that a distributed volunteer computing project to search for Einstein's gravitational waves would be a great way to involve the public and get more computing power. At the time, it seemed too ‘special interest’ to really work.

The idea really took off in 2004, when the American Physical Society, as part of its preparations for the World Year of Physics, offered to help recruit volunteers for our project called Einstein@Home.”

🎞️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlCz_eNWEc4

🎞️ Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=MlCz_eNWEc4

To date, nearly half a million people have contributed to the project. On average, about 31,000 computers from 16,000 volunteers provide 13.3 petaflop/s (million billion floating point operations per second) of aggregate sustained computing power. If listed on the Top-500, Einstein@Home would be one of the 100 most powerful computers in the world.

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #OnThisDay #OTD #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

2021 BOINC Workshop - Day 01 - Bruce Allen

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The long-term goal of @einsteinathome is to detect continuous gravitational waves. Astronomers believe that neutron stars – exotic, compact remnants of exploded massive stars – can produce these tiny ripples in space-time as they spin.

M. Alessandra Papa, leader of the permanent independent research group “Continuous Gravitational Waves” at the @mpi_grav in Hannover, Germany, explains:

“Since we started Einstein@Home our searches for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars have always been the most sensitive.

Thanks to the efficient analysis methods we have developed, we can make the best use of the enormous computing power donated by our volunteers. We are ‘digging deep’ for faint signals hidden in the gravitational-wave data and look forward to more data being released soon to farther our investigations.”

🎞️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xIAHdDipNg

🎞️ Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=7xIAHdDipNg

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #OnThisDay #OTD #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Searching for Continuous Gravitational Waves

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Feb 19 at 10:57amWeb
Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

In 2009, @einsteinathome expanded its scope to search for radio pulsars in data from the Arecibo radio telescope. Like a cosmic lighthouse, this type of neutron star emits regular pulses of radio waves that can be observed with large radio telescopes.

“We realized that Einstein@Home’s computing power could be put to good use by helping to search for pulsars in binary systems in data from the Arecibo pulsar survey,” says Bruce Allen. “We also knew that it would be many years before we and our volunteers might finally see the first continuous gravitational-wave detection. Finding new, possibly exotic, radio pulsars would keep all of us motivated toward that long-term goal.”

In the summer of 2010, Einstein@Home found a new radio pulsar in Arecibo data, marking the first astronomical discovery by a distributed volunteer computing project. The pulsar was a rare and unusual type of neutron star, with only a dozen similar examples known at the time. “This was a milestone for us and our volunteers. It proved that citizen science and public participation can make a difference in astronomy and other data-driven sciences,” says Bruce Allen.

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

To date, 55 radio pulsars have been discovered by @einsteinathome and its volunteers, and there may be many more to come.

“Einstein@Home has found radio pulsars in archival data that have been thoroughly analyzed many times before,” says Colin Clark, group leader of the Pulsars group at the @mpi_grav in Hannover, Germany. “This is why we expect to find many more exciting radio pulsars with Einstein@Home in the future.”

ℹ️ Discoveries in Arecibo data: https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/rediscovery_page/rediscoveries.html and https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/BRP4_discoveries/

ℹ️ Discoveries in data from the Murriyang telescope at Parkes Observatory: https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/PMPS_discoveries/

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #OnThisDay #OTD #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Einstein@Home Arecibo Binary Radio Pulsar Search Detection Page

Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

In 2011, @einsteinathome researchers realized that the highly efficient methods they had developed to search for continuous gravitational waves could be put to an entirely new use. Working with colleagues at the @MPIfR_Bonn in Bonn, Germany, they set their sights on analyzing data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

In 2013, they reported the discovery of their first four gamma-ray pulsars found in Fermi data.

Over the next few years, the full discovery potential of Einstein@Home’s analysis of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope data became clear. Einstein@Home volunteers helped find 39 previously unknown gamma-ray pulsars. This corresponds to about one eighth of all known gamma-ray pulsars.

“One of the great things about the enormous collective computing power of Einstein@Home is that it lets us push the boundaries, and make discoveries that would be otherwise impossible,” says Colin Clark. “We have solved year-old mysteries, found a pulsar hidden in plain sight, the first millisecond pulsar visible only in gamma rays, and a record-breaking ‘spider pulsar’ that evaporates its lightweight companion.”

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

In 2023, @einsteinathome teamed up with Zooniverse, a successful citizen science web portal. The project “Einstein@Home: Pulsar Seekers” trains volunteers on the Zooniverse platform to identify new pulsars by viewing graphical representations of Einstein@Home search results.

➡️ https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/einstein-at-home-pulsar-seekers

More than 3,500 volunteers have already classified almost half a million pulsar candidates. They have identified 16 possible new radio pulsars.

“We are now carefully analyzing confirmation observations of the 16 pulsar candidates made with the most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth,” says Bruce Allen. “I expect at least a few of them to be real, and I can’t wait to learn more about the latest discoveries we made thanks to the volunteers.”

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #OnThisDay #OTD #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars

Zooniverse

The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research.

Show threadMPI for Gravitational PhysicsFeb 19

As the gravitational-wave detectors become more sensitive, the @einsteinathome search for continuous gravitational waves gets closer to the first direct observation of these elusive waves.

Detecting them could reveal a hidden population of neutron stars in our Milky Way and provide new insights into matter and gravity under extreme conditions. Continuous gravitational waves could also come from clouds of dark matter around spinning black holes, or from orbiting pairs of light (primordial) black holes that formed shortly after the Big Bang.

#20YearsOfEinsteinAtHome #CitizenScience #DistributedComputing #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Pulsars