This article describes a set of curriculum modifications designed to integrate gravitational-wave science into a high school physics or astronomy curriculum. Gravitational-wave scientists are on the verge of being able to detect extreme cosmic events
, like the merger of two black holes, happening hundreds of millions of light years away. Their work has the potential to propel astronomy into a new era by providing an entirely new means of observing astronomical phenomena. Gravitational-wave science encompasses astrophysics, physics, engineering, and quantum optics. As a result, this curriculum exposes students to the interdisciplinary nature of science. It also provides an authentic context for students to learn about astrophysical sources, data analysis techniques, cutting-edge detector technology, and error analysis.
One of the goals of gravitational-wave astronomy is simultaneous detection of gravitational-wave signals from merging compact-object binaries and the electromagnetic transients from these mergers. With the next generation of advanced ground-based gra
vitational wave detectors under construction, we examine the benefits of the proposed extension of the detector network to include a fourth site in Australia in addition to the network of Hanford, Livingston and Cascina sites. Using Bayesian parameter-estimation analyses of simulated gravitational-wave signals from a range of coalescing-binary locations and orientations, we study the improvement in parameter estimation. We find that an Australian detector can break degeneracies in several parameters; in particular, the localization of the source on the sky is improved by a factor of ~4, with more modest improvements in distance and binary inclination estimates. This enhanced ability to localize sources on the sky will be crucial in any search for electromagnetic counterparts to detected gravitational-wave signals.
There is growing notion that black holes may not contain curvature singularities (and that indeed nature in general may abhor such spacetime defects). This notion could have implications on our understanding of the evolution of primordial black holes
(PBHs) and possibly on their contribution to cosmic energy. This paper discusses the evolution of a non-singular black hole (NSBH) based on a recent model [1]. We begin with a study of the thermodynamic process of the black hole in this model, and demonstrate the existence of a maximum horizon temperature T_{max}, corresponding to a unique mass value. At this mass value the specific heat capacity C changes signs to positive and the body begins to lose its black hole characteristics. With no loss of generality, the model is used to discuss the time evolution of a primordial black hole (PBH), through the early radiation era of the universe to present, under the assumption that PBHs are non-singular. In particular, we track the evolution of two benchmark PBHs, namely the one radiating up to the end of the cosmic radiation domination era, and the one stopping to radiate currently, and in each case determine some useful features including the initial mass m_{f} and the corresponding time of formation t_{f}. It is found that along the evolutionary history of the universe the distribution of PBH remnant masses (PBH-RM) PBH-RMs follows a power law. We believe such a result can be a useful step in a study to establish current abundance of PBH-MRs.
