The general layout will consist of lectures in the morning, and hands-on exercises in the afternoon. The morning lectures will be mainly observational or theoretical in nature, while the afternoon sessions will enable the students to apply the concepts they learned using state-of-the-art open source codes and addressing specific problems. This approach will achieve the dual goal of familiarizing the students with the theoretical and observational aspects while giving them valuable hands-on experience with state-of-the-art data processing and inference codes as well as computational astrophysics codes.
Learning Outcome
The lectures and tutorial sessions will introduce the students to the fundamental theoretical concepts, state-of-the-art numerical tools, and current observational landscape in the burgeoning field of gravitational wave astrophysics. The school will bring together students interested in these subjects with some of the world’s experts in an environment fostering interactions and exchange of ideas, allowing the students to develop their international network with top international researchers. The lecturers will encourage the students to continue working in these fields, emphasizing the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to research in these active areas.
Teaching and Evaluation Methods
The school will cover basic observational and theoretical aspects of gravitational wave astrophysics by means of lectures and presentations. The learning experience will be complemented with exercise tutorials. An important and unique component on the school will be the mandatory assignments in the afternoons. These sessions will complement the lectures with research-focused problems that will solidify concepts introduced in the morning lectures. To solve these problems the students will be introduced to (1) analysis tools and access to the public LIGO data via the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center (GWOSC), (2) The FewBody code for simulating gravitational dynamics of interacting compact objects, and (3) Data analysis and inference techniques for the Pulsar Timing Array data via the Enterprise code. The student learning experience will be assessed continuously during these hands-on afternoon sessions.
Preparation, Self-study, and Workload
The school will take place from Monday August 2th until Friday August 6th, 2021. There will be theory lectures in the morning and exercise tutorials in the afternoon. The students will be asked to pre-install some of the software packages that will be used in the school in advance in order to make the best use of their time during the afternoon sessions. The students will also be encouraged to read select material in advance so they can make the most out of their time at the school. The total workload is expected to be 70 hours, approximately divided into 35 hours of preparatory self-study and 35 hours during the school.
European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System
All the students attending the lectures and actively participating in the exercise tutorials will earn 2.5 ECTS points.
