Gravity Waves

[Michael Mozina]

I posted this originally over at CRUS, but it bears repeating here as well.

LIGO setup a whole network and email system designed to help them 'get out the word' to astronomers to begin searching for a visual confirmation of their claim. Apparently *they* thought it might be possible to visual verify high energy release events in spacetime visually. They even "put out the word" over this particular signal, but alas to no avail. Now if we simply imposed the same kind of requirement on claims of celestial origin as were imposed on any and every other type of potential explanation for this particular signal, the lack of a visual confirmation would eliminate a celestial origin claim, and we'd be back to square one with no "real" explanation for the signal in question.

I also believe that the most damning bit of evidence against this supposedly "peer reviewed" paper is the fact that they never informed the peer reviewers that this specific signal in question had first been rejected as a potential gravity wave candidate with 'high confidence' no less. No specific details were given to the peer reviewer or to the public in terms of the specific channels and decision making processes that were involved in the original rejection, or in terms of their override of this rejection. For instance, they never explained why that specific veto method was added at the beginning of ER8. Why was it added in the first place, and why had they "trusted" it for months prior to this one specific event? They never explained which specific input channels were involved in the veto. They never explained why they intentionally removed a veto method that worked "as designed" up until this "one specific" event. They never explained how they got from a "high confidence" rejection, to a "5+ sigma certainty" over this specific issue. The whole "discovery" claim reeks of sloppy science, and the peer reviewers were never even informed of these critically important facts.

Instead the overall tone of the paper is one of supposed "confidence" that every possible attempt to explain the signal in other ways had been explored, and eliminated and they were somehow 'rational' to rule out every potential geomagnetic event for 203,000 years based on 16 days of cherry picked data.

I'm definitely not impressed by this particular "discovery" paper. In fact, I think they owe the peer reviewers an apology for leaving out important information, particularly in a paper that claims to make a "new discovery" in physics. I remain open to LIGO one day finding evidence of gravity waves, but I'm not impressed with this particular paper, and I doubt that I ever will be impressed by it.

[Aardwolf]

The "detection" will probably achieve what it was supposed to achieve. To ensure that when the grant linked below expires in November 2016 they won't all be out of a job.

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAwa ... ards=false

[Zyxzevn]

More money into Earth's most sensitive magnetic field sensor.

Maybe we can use the data to find out more about the magnetic fields in the solar system.

[Michael Mozina]

One of the interesting aspects of this 'discovery' to come out of my conversation on this topic over at CRUS is this little tantalizing tidbit:

http://www.ligo.org/magazine/LIGO-magazine-issue-8.pdf

LLO – September 14, 2015, 09:53:51 UTC – Alex Urban, Reed Essick: The Coherent WaveBurst (cWB) data analysis algorithm detected GW150914. An entry was recorded in the central transient event database (GraceDB), triggering a slew of automated follow-up procedures. Within three seconds, asynchronous automated data quality (iDQ) glitch-detection followup processes began reporting results. Fourteen seconds after cWB uploaded the candidate, iDQ processes at LLO reported with high confidence that the event was due to a glitch. The event was labeled as “rejected” 4 seconds afterward. Automated alerts ceased.
Processing continued, however. Within five minutes of detection, we knew there were no gamma-ray bursts reported near the time of the event. Within 15 minutes, the first sky map was available.
At 11:23:20 UTC, an analyst follow-up determined which auxiliary channels were associated with iDQ’s decision. It became clear that these were un-calibrated versions of h(t) which had not been flagged as “unsafe” and were only added to the set of available low latency channels after the start of ER8. Based on the safety of the channels, the Data Quality Veto label was removed within 2.5 hours and analyses proceeded after restarting by hand.

Essentially, the h(t) veto routines that were installed and that were in use at the time of the signal had originally *rejected* this signal as being an actual gravity wave with *high confidence* no less. They literally had to go into the software routine that was in use at the time and *modify* that software to remove an unspecified veto mechanism of some type. I'm inclined to believe that this signal was originally rejected based on magnetometer readings of EMP signals, but I simply don't have enough information to verify that yet.

Having gone through a bit of an actual debate now on this topic, this specific issue seems to be the most damning aspect of this supposedly "peer reviewed" paper. The entire basis of this claim stems from the LIGO teams claim that they saw no external auxiliary channel input that might explain this specific signal....therefore the rest of the paper is true.

In reality however, they did have auxiliary channel information that originally flagged this specific signal, and rejected it with 'high confidence', no less.

The real "deal breaker" here is that nobody bothered to mention that small *fact* in the supposedly "peer reviewed" material. No mention was made of the rejection, no specific channel information was given, no specific line of code was listed as the culprit. That little bombshell was simply omitted from the published papers entirely. Based on these *serious* omissions in the paper, it's not even clear that this work is actually "peer reviewed" in terms of what *actually* occurred. The whole premise of the paper was that there was no external channel input seen during this event, and they left everything "as it was" during this process. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality their hardware/software rejected the signal in question, they didn't like the results, so they manually changed them and neglected to mention that fact anywhere in the published papers!

The complete lack of visual confirmation makes this claim "iffy" at best, and ultimately it's based upon two different standards of evidence. All other claims as to cause had to have external (usually auxiliary channel) support for the claim, or it was simply rejected. Once they got to celestial claims of origin however, they changed the standard of evidence and "assumed" that it's celestial in origin *without* any external empirical support of any type.

They made all the right attempts to visually validate that this signal was celestial in origin, and yet they never found any visual support, or neutrino support. If they used the same standard of evidence with respect to celestial claims as were used with Earth oriented claims of cause, they would also have to eliminate their own celestial claim for lack of external evidence, and we're left with no identified cause.

The "blip transient" problem is also a pretty serious problem IMO. They never did isolate the exact cause of that issue, including specific auxiliary channels and exact causes. Instead they "assumed" that they were instrument related phenomenon, and therefore they could never be observed in both detectors. If instead these are generated by external EMP events, they may sometimes be seen by one detector, and less frequently by both detectors. They routinely observe blip transients in exactly these same frequency ranges in both detectors. The shape of the signal is also very close to the event in question as evidenced in diagram 12 of the supporting papers.

There are several other problems with this paper that I mentioned earlier in this thread, but these are the "biggest" problems with this paper.

I'd also have to question their entire methodology as it relates to their 5.1 sigma confidence claim. They basically cherry picked 16 "clean" days of data from more than about 40 possible days, they cleaned the data some more to remove known influences, and *then* they tried to apply that 16 days of "hand cleaned" data to a 203,000 year window of time in terms of what was 'typical' of background noise events. That's simply an irrational premise in the final analysis. Not all terrestrial events or solar events are certain to occur in a 16 day window with enough frequency to show up in such an analysis.

I was actually more impressed with the BICEP2 paper after the first few weeks. This one gives me the creeps because they left out important information related to the original signal rejection, the channels inputs that caused the high confidence rejection, etc. That just doesn't seem professional to me, particularly when the whole premise of the paper was that there were no auxiliary channel input observed around the time of the signal, therefore black holes did it. In reality however, the signal was rejected originally, and there were auxiliary channel inputs that caused this rejection. We (and the peer reviewers) still have no idea which channels were involved in that high confidence rejection, or why *exactly* they later chose to override the original veto. Nothing was even mentioned of that original signal veto and rejection in the published papers. That's simply unethical IMO.

[Michael Mozina]

They routinely observe blip transients in exactly these same frequency ranges in both detectors. The shape of the signal is also very close to the event in question as evidenced in diagram 12 of the supporting papers.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/ ... t-69444294

FYI, I originally confused the black and gray lines of that graph in figure 12. While the blip transient that they compared to the actual signal is still similar in terms duration and in terms of sharp frequency shift during that short duration, it's nowhere near as "very close" of a fit to the signal as I originally assumed. It's still in the same ballpark, just not the close fit that I first assumed.

Apparently it was important to Selfsim at CRUS that I confess my sins here too, so I did.

[Michael Mozina]

I made a small revision to item 4 on my list, but I would otherwise stand by this list of the 10 key problems with the the LIGO "discovery" paper. I was most personally offended by item 10 on the list, but I didn't find out about it while reading through the original published papers. I only found out about it after the fact from unpublished materials provided by LIGO's website. I think that item 10 actually precludes this paper from being truly "peer reviewed" from my perspective. Too many relevant facts were actually withheld, and/or misrepresented in the published papers with respect to the original veto of that specific signal.

1. There is no visual confirmation of this claim even with many instruments that should be capable of verifying the LIGO team's claim of a celestial origin of this signal.
2. There is no void/falsification/verification mechanism applied to *any* celestial origin claim at all, a blatant double standard with respect to other potential causes of the signal in question.
3. There is no specific channel or specific explanation identified or justified for "blip transients", which are routinely seen by both instruments in exactly these frequency ranges and with very similar wave patterns.
4. Blip transients even have a similar frequency shift process, over a short period of time as demonstrated, documented and noted in figure 12 of the supporting document on EM influences considered by LIGO.
5. There is a known and demonstrated coupling mechanism between EM pulse events and the equipment that is being used to detect this signal.
6. No potential long term or "one off" events from geomagnetic or solar influence are taken into account in that highly "fine tuned" 203,000 year figure which is based upon just 16 days of cherry picked "quiet" data.
7. No raw magnetometer data from either detector seems to be publicly available for inspection during the 1/4 second timeline in question. I've been through a lot of the data that is available online, and I've not seen it, but perhaps it's publicly available and someone could just point it out.
8. No relevant satellite magnetosphere observational data was ever compared to any 'blip transient' events, or the 'discovery' event even though whistler waves from the magnetosphere follow similar signal patterns and can occur in these frequencies.
9. The entire paper is based upon the flimsy premise that "Since we can't easily explain the observation in question locally yet, therefore something exotic and 'unseen' that is really far away did it." just like the BICEP2 paper. This type of premise has already been demonstrated to be *fraught* with scientific peril over the long haul, and it's the same basis of the the breakdown of the 5+ BICEP2 claim during peer review, the breakdown of the "dark matter" claim over the past decade, as well as the breakdown of the "standard candle" claim over the past 15 years.
10. No detailed explanation was given for the iDQ rejection, or the subsequent removal of the "data quality veto" method of the iDQ software in the published paper as clearly warranted by the original rejection of this exact signal.

Since this paper has already presumably been peer reviewed, I don't even know how item 10 can or will ever get resolved.

I think the important thing to look for in the future is to see what actually occurs in terms of future observations, and future published papers. If these are not actually gravity wave observations, then the lack of a visual confirmation of their claim is only going to get worse, and harder to explain over time as more detectors come online and triangulation processes are improved. I would also expect these types of events to occur with some frequency if they are in fact gravity wave related events, so there does some to be "pressure" to demonstrate that this is not just a one time "fluke".

[+EyeOn-W-ANeed2Know]

Hey Michael, did you hear or read any of the newest ideas based on this detection??
I saw short mention of something in a broadcast (of course, no links available to get a better idea of what they were referencing) that mentioned something about how these scientists think using this single sample as a baseline, they can now apply it as a model to filter out noise on a universal scale so they can zero in on those G-Waves.
Sounded suspiciously like a proposal for using the GW150914 event as a BH merger "standard candle".

[Michael Mozina]

Hey Michael, did you hear or read any of the newest ideas based on this detection??
I saw short mention of something in a broadcast (of course, no links available to get a better idea of what they were referencing) that mentioned something about how these scientists think using this single sample as a baseline, they can now apply it as a model to filter out noise on a universal scale so they can zero in on those G-Waves.
Sounded suspiciously like a proposal for using the GW150914 event as a BH merger "standard candle".

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/ ... 80/page-26

The last I heard at CRUS, they were also trying to suggest that these were "uncharged, naked black hole mergers", AKA entirely invisible BH merger "standard candles".

Is it just me, or are the rationalizations sounding more desperate by the year? The amount of special pleading that is required to support their model these days is simply unbelievable.

[Zyxzevn]

Some more news on arstechnica

They claim that the software disregarded the signals, because it came from a "wrong" direction (through earth).
The article itself goes into the attempts to find a signal related to whatever event caused it.
They think that they might have found something, but are still in the dark.

Sadly, they still can not see the sun.

[Zyxzevn]

Someone (on reddit) asked this interesting question:
"What I don't understand is why the elongation/compression of space (i.e. also the light contained within?) doesn't also locally red-/blueshift the light in the interferometer's arms, cancelling out any effect. Can anyone shed some light on this? "

[Aardwolf]

Someone (on reddit) asked this interesting question:
"What I don't understand is why the elongation/compression of space (i.e. also the light contained within?) doesn't also locally red-/blueshift the light in the interferometer's arms, cancelling out any effect. Can anyone shed some light on this? "

The "answer" is supposed to be here;
http://stuver.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/q- ... by-gw.html

A real gravitational wave will cause one arm to shorten and the other to lengthen. This will also cause the laser wavelength in the shortened arm to decrease (blueshift) and the wavelength in the lengthened arm to increase (redshift). But there is nothing in the detector that measures wavelength. What it really measures is the shift in the arrival time of each 'tick' of the wavelength crests. If the arms stay the same length (no gravitational wave), then the 'ticks' of the laser light come back to the beam splitter at the same time and produces destructive interference where we measure the light (labeled 'Photodetector' in the image above). If a gravitational wave causes the length of the arms to change and shifts where the 'ticks' of the laser light occur, the two light beams will no longer return to the beam splitter at the same time.

The problem is that space AND time is supposed to be effected by a gravity wave which means it should not take longer/shorter time to cross the respectively longer/shorther arms.

[+EyeOn-W-ANeed2Know]

This is getting really confusing.
Apparently despite the fact "Previous work suggested that for black holes of this size — about 30 times the mass of the sun — there would be no bright flash, no hazy glow, no light to speak of"
Someone did see the flash... that shouldn't have been seen.... ???
This is getting to be like trying to work out time paradoxes. Makes my head hurt ...(must be the gravity).

"In September 2015, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope saw a faint burst of high-energy light less than 1 second after the black holes had collided, and in the same region of the sky."
"The chances are good that the gamma-ray light did indeed come from the black-hole merger, but more evidence is needed to nail that conclusion down, scientists said."

So a "one in 500 chance" is considered "good"?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... n-spotted/

[comingfrom]

They claim that the software disregarded the signals, because it came from a "wrong" direction (through earth)

I thought gravitational waves are supposed to travel right on through the earth.
Why only be interested in the gravitational waves from one direction?

This will also cause the laser wavelength in the shortened arm to decrease (blueshift) and the wavelength in the lengthened arm to increase (redshift). But there is nothing in the detector that measures wavelength.

All that money and equipment, and yet no instrument to measure the predicted change in the wavelength?
Boggles the mind.

Anyhow, I came to post a link that belongs here.
discovery.com: Gamma-Ray Burst Detected Near Gravitational Wave Source

When they speak of the same region/patch of sky, I seem to remember, the location of the source was not pinpointed, but estimated to come from somewhere in a very large region.
So them saying "near" sounds much like a drowning man clutching at a straw, to me.

~Paul

[Lloyd]

SCI FACTS GAME
Sci Facts game is planned for tonight at 9 pm ET, 6 pm Pacific.
Location is a chatroom at http://chatzy.com/45699794196406.
Rules:
Briefly state any specific, lesser-known scientific fact.
The fact may relate to this thread topic or any other science topic.
State one fact per post.
Make as many posts as you like.
Next day, judges will decide which fact seems most important and deserves the most publicity.
The decision will be posted at the chatroom and in the thread at:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 10&t=16278

[Michael Mozina]

I'm rather enjoying the pregnant pause that's going on here as it relates to this so called gravity wave "discovery".

*If* indeed the LIGO team can actually detect, and did actually detect gravity waves as they advertised to the scientific community and to the public, this detection should certainly not be a "one off" event, and they should eventually be able to visually verify one of their detected gravity wave signals, sooner or later.

1. There is no visual confirmation of this claim even with many instruments that should be capable of verifying the LIGO team's claim of a celestial origin of this signal.
2. There is no void/falsification/verification mechanism applied to *any* celestial origin claim at all, a blatant double standard with respect to other potential causes of the signal in question.
3. There is no specific channel or specific explanation identified or justified for "blip transients", which are routinely seen by both instruments in exactly these frequency ranges and with very similar wave patterns.
4. Blip transients even have a similar frequency shift process, over a short period of time as demonstrated, documented and noted in figure 12 of the supporting document on EM influences considered by LIGO.
5. There is a known and demonstrated coupling mechanism between EM pulse events and the equipment that is being used to detect this signal.
6. No potential long term or "one off" events from geomagnetic or solar influence are taken into account in that highly "fine tuned" 203,000 year figure which is based upon just 16 days of cherry picked "quiet" data.
7. No raw magnetometer data from either detector seems to be publicly available for inspection during the 1/4 second timeline in question. I've been through a lot of the data that is available online, and I've not seen it, but perhaps it's publicly available and someone could just point it out.
8. No relevant satellite magnetosphere observational data was ever compared to any 'blip transient' events, or the 'discovery' event even though whistler waves from the magnetosphere follow similar signal patterns and can occur in these frequencies.
9. The entire paper is based upon the flimsy premise that "Since we can't easily explain the observation in question locally yet, therefore something exotic and 'unseen' that is really far away did it." just like the BICEP2 paper. This type of premise has already been demonstrated to be *fraught* with scientific peril over the long haul, and it's the same basis of the the breakdown of the 5+ BICEP2 claim during peer review, the breakdown of the "dark matter" claim over the past decade, as well as the breakdown of the "standard candle" claim over the past 15 years.
10. No detailed explanation was given for the iDQ rejection, or the subsequent removal of the "data quality veto" method of the iDQ software in the published paper as clearly warranted by the original rejection of this exact signal.

If however that list of 10 criticisms of their paper that I came up with has any scientific merit whatsoever, it's entirely possible that the mainstream did not detect gravity waves as they "assumed", but only simple EM pulse events, most likely in the Earth's atmosphere. If that is in fact the case, and I personally believe that it is the case, then they'll never be able to visually verify their gravity wave claims.

It's coming up on approximately 8 months now since the detection of the original "signal" which set this "discovery" claim into motion. Since I didn't design their equipment, I'm not entirely clear how often we should expect to unambiguously observe "gravity wave signals" over the course of a year, but the key question remains: Was it really a gravity wave that they detected about 8 months ago, or was it actually something else?

It seems to me that the longer that this delay continues without any type of visual confirmation of the original signal, or any other future signal, the more that their original "discovery" claim looks questionable and dubious. Without any visual confirmation, there does some to be an 'expiration date' on their original "discovery" claim.