dr Mateusz Denys, UW

An application of space-time spectral analysis for seismic-wave detection in Virgo interferometer

Virgo is a European detector of gravitational waves located near Pisa, Italy. In order to detect gravitational waves Virgo must be extremely sensitive and well isolated from the external perturbances. However, it cannot be isolated from local changes of gravitational field, resulted, for instance, from mass movements under the surface of the Earth. This part of the gravitational-field changes is called Newtonian noise and, fortunately, it can be calculated using measurements of seismic noise in the vicinity of the Virgo detector. I am going to present a method for detection of seismic waves that I proposed during my internship in Virgo Collaboration. The method uses data from the seismic detectors in the west-end Virgo building and is based on the mixed space-time spectral (Fourier) analysis. It can be applied to Newtonian noise calculation in Virgo and to a broad range of other similar problems.