Chad Hanna

Research Interests

I am a gravitational wave astronomer. My research focuses on detecting gravitational waves emitted by coalescing compact objects with the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). My collaborator at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), Kipp Cannon, and I represent PI and CITA as members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). We are both preparing for what our field colloquially calls the advanced detector era when the LIGO detectors will see a factor of 10 improvement in their sensitivity allowing gravitational wave detection to become routine.

Gravitational waves are predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity, though none have been directly detected. The reason that the direct detection of gravitational waves has escaped us for so long is that they have very little measurable effect on normal objects around us. The LIGO detectors are capable of measuring distances far smaller than the nucleus of an atom. We have no means to create gravitational waves of sufficient strength on earth and must instead look to the sky for some of the Universe's most extraordinary events.

Positions Held

• 2008-2010 LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Postdoctoral Scholar.

Recent Publications

• Kipp Cannon, Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel. "Interpolating compact binary waveforms using the singular value decomposition" Phys. Rev. D 85, 081504 (2012)
• LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations. "Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Compact Binary Coalescence in LIGO's Sixth Science Run and Virgo's Science Runs 2 and 3" Phys. Rev D85 082002 (2012)
• Kipp Cannon, Romain Cariou, Adrian Chapman, Mireia Crispin-Ortuzar, Nickolas Fotopoulos, Melissa Frei, Chad Hanna, Erin Kara, Drew Keppel, Laura Liao, Stephen Privitera, Antony Searle, Leo Singer, Alan Weinstein. "Toward Early-Warning Detection of Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescence" ApJ 748 136 (2012)
• Kipp Cannon, Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel. "Efficiently enclosing the compact binary parameter space by singular-value decomposition" Phys. Rev. D 84, 084003 (2011)
• The LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations "Search for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspiral, merger and ringdown" Phys. Rev. D83 122005 (2011)
• Kipp Cannon, Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel, Antony C. Searle. "Composite gravitational-wave detection of compact binary coalescence" Phys. Rev. D 83 084053 (2011)
• Kipp Cannon, Adrian Chapman, Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel, Antony C. Searle, Alan J. Weinstein. "Singular value decomposition applied to compact binary coalescence gravitational-wave signals" Phys. Rev. D 82 044025 (2010)
• LIGO Scientific Collaboration. "Search for gravitational-wave inspiral signals associated with short Gamma-Ray Bursts during LIGO.s fifth and Virgo's first science run" Astrophys. J. 715 1453 (2010)
• Chad Hanna for the LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations. "Gravitational-wave data analysis overview of compact binary searches using waveforms inspired by numerical relativity", Class. Quantum Grav. 27 114003 (2010)
• The LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations "Search for Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescence in LIGO and Virgo Data from S5 and VSR1" Phys. Rev. D 82 102001 (2010)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration. "Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Compact Binary Coalescence in 186 Days of LIGO's fifth Science Run" Phys. Rev. D 80 047101 (2009)
• Chad Hanna, Miguel Megevand, Evan Ochsner and Carlos Palenzuela . "A method for estimating time-frequency characteristics of compact binary mergers to improve searches for inspiral, merger and ring-down phases separately" Class. Quantum Grav. 26 015009 (2009)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration "Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO's S5 Data" Phys Rev D 79 122001 (2009)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration "Search for gravitational wave ringdowns from perturbed black holes in LIGO S4 data" Phys. Rev. D 80 062001 (2009)
• Kopparapu, Ravi Kumar; Hanna, Chad R.; Kalogera, Vicky; O'Shaughnessy, Richard; Gon- zalez, Gabriela; Brady, Patrick R.; Fairhurst, Stephen "Host Galaxies Catalog Used in LIGO Searches for Compact Binary Coalescence Events" The Astrophysical Journal. 675 2 1459-1467. (2008)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration "Search for gravitational waves from binary inspirals in S3 and S4 LIGO data" Phys. Rev. D 77 062002 (2008)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration "Search for gravitational waves from spinning black hole and neutron star binary inspirals in S3 LIGO data." Phys. Rev. D 78 042002 (2008)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Hurley "Implications for the Origin of GRB 070201 from LIGO Observations" Astrophys. J. 681 1419 (2008)
• C R Hanna et al. "Reducing gravitational wave false alarms using signals at the antisymmetric port in LIGO detectors" Class. Quantum Grav. 23 S17-S22 (2006)
• The LIGO Scientific Collaboration. "Search for gravitational waves from binary black-hole inspirals in LIGO data" Phys. Rev. D 73 062001 (2006).
• S. Babak et al "Searching for gravitational waves from binary coalescence" 1208.3491
• Intense Electromagnetic Outbursts from Collapsing Hypermassive Neutron Stars, Luis Lehner, Carlos Palenzuela, Steven L. Liebling, Christopher Thompson, Chad Hanna, arxiv: 1112.2622

Seminars

• "Singular Value Decomposition and Reduced Basis techniques for gravitational-wave detection, parameter estimation, etc" Kavli Institute or Theoretical Physics, UCSB
• "LIGO Calibration and the impact on measurements" Kavli Institute or Theoretical Physics, UCSB
• "Searching for gravitational waves from merging neutron stars and black holes" Colloquium California State University Fullerton
• "Searching for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence", APS, Anaheim, CA
• "Gravitational wave search for binary black holes in the nearby Universe" Gravitational-wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop (GWPAW) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
• "Gravitational Waves with GStreamer Workshop" A workshop co-organized by Kipp Cannon and me at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.