Maura McLaughlin

Last updated
Maura McLaughlin
Born
Maura Ann McLaughlin

May 1972 (age 5152) [1]
Alma mater Pennsylvania State University (BS)
Cornell University (PhD)
Spouse Duncan Lorimer
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Astrophysics
Institutions West Virginia University
Jodrell Bank Observatory
University of Manchester
Thesis Multi-wavelength studies of rotation-driven pulsars  (2001)
Doctoral advisor James M. Cordes [1]
Website physics.wvu.edu/directory/faculty/maura-mclaughlin OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Maura Ann McLaughlin (born 1972) [1] is an astrophysics professor at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia known for her work on fast radio bursts (FRBs). [2] [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Education

McLaughlin grew up in Oreland, Pennsylvania. [6] She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1994. She obtained a PhD in Astronomy and Space Sciences from Cornell University in 2001 advised by James M. Cordes. [1] [7]

Career and research

McLaughlin is known for her work on furthering the research on gravitational waves and for her dedication to the Pulsar Search Collaboratory. [8]

As of 2024 McLaughlin is a professor in Astronomy and Physics at West Virginia University. [9]

McLaughlin served as chair of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) collaboration. [10] The team was originally funded by a 6.5 million dollar award given to them by the National Science Foundation as part of the Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) program and is now an National Science Foundation (NSF) Physics Frontier Center. [11] McLaughlin was also fundamental in the discovery of the double-pulsar system as well as in the discovery of several new pulsars. [9] McLaughlin dedicates her time to the Pulsar Search Collaboratory located in Green Bank, West Virginia. The Pulsar Search Collaboratory involves high school students in a collaborative effort with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) to further information and discover new pulsars. [8]

McLaughlin conducts her research on pulsars using the Green Bank Telescope, the Arecibo Observatory and previously the Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester. [2]

Awards and honors

McLaughlin was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2024. [12] [13] Other awards and honours include:

Personal life

McLaughlin is married to Duncan Lorimer, a physics professor also at West Virginia University, with whom she has three children. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutron star</span> Collapsed core of a massive star

A neutron star is a collapsed core of a massive supergiant star. The stars that later collapse into neutron stars have a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses (M), possibly more if the star was especially rich in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Except for black holes, neutron stars are the smallest and densest known class of stellar objects. Neutron stars have a radius on the order of 10 kilometers (6 mi) and a mass of about 1.4 M. They result from the supernova explosion of a massive star, combined with gravitational collapse, that compresses the core past white dwarf star density to that of atomic nuclei.

An astronomical radio source is an object in outer space that emits strong radio waves. Radio emission comes from a wide variety of sources. Such objects are among the most extreme and energetic physical processes in the universe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Einstein@Home</span> BOINC volunteer computing project that analyzes data from LIGO to detect gravitational waves

Einstein@Home is a volunteer computing project that searches for signals from spinning neutron stars in data from gravitational-wave detectors, from large radio telescopes, and from a gamma-ray telescope. Neutron stars are detected by their pulsed radio and gamma-ray emission as radio and/or gamma-ray pulsars. They also might be observable as continuous gravitational wave sources if they are rapidly spinning and non-axisymmetrically deformed. The project was officially launched on 19 February 2005 as part of the American Physical Society's contribution to the World Year of Physics 2005 event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulsar</span> Rapidly rotating neutron star

A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millisecond pulsar</span> Pulsar with a rotational period less than about 10 milliseconds

A millisecond pulsar (MSP) is a pulsar with a rotational period less than about 10 milliseconds. Millisecond pulsars have been detected in radio, X-ray, and gamma ray portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The leading hypothesis for the origin of millisecond pulsars is that they are old, rapidly rotating neutron stars that have been spun up or "recycled" through accretion of matter from a companion star in a close binary system. For this reason, millisecond pulsars are sometimes called recycled pulsars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PSR J0737−3039</span> Double pulsar in the constellation Puppis

PSR J0737−3039 is the first known double pulsar. It consists of two neutron stars emitting electromagnetic waves in the radio wavelength in a relativistic binary system. The two pulsars are known as PSR J0737−3039A and PSR J0737−3039B. It was discovered in 2003 at Australia's Parkes Observatory by an international team led by the Italian radio astronomer Marta Burgay during a high-latitude pulsar survey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astropulse</span> BOINC based volunteer computing SETI@home subproject

Astropulse is a volunteer computing project to search for primordial black holes, pulsars, and extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Volunteer resources are harnessed through Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform. In 1999, the Space Sciences Laboratory launched SETI@home, which would rely on massively parallel computation on desktop computers scattered around the world. SETI@home utilizes recorded data from the Arecibo radio telescope and searches for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space, signifying the presence of extraterrestrial technology. It was soon recognized that this same data might be scoured for other signals of value to the astronomy and physics community.

The gravitational wave background is a random background of gravitational waves permeating the Universe, which is detectable by gravitational-wave experiments, like pulsar timing arrays. The signal may be intrinsically random, like from stochastic processes in the early Universe, or may be produced by an incoherent superposition of a large number of weak independent unresolved gravitational-wave sources, like supermassive black-hole binaries. Detecting the gravitational wave background can provide information that is inaccessible by any other means about astrophysical source population, like hypothetical ancient supermassive black-hole binaries, and early Universe processes, like hypothetical primordial inflation and cosmic strings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binary pulsar</span> Two pulsars orbiting each other

A binary pulsar is a pulsar with a binary companion, often a white dwarf or neutron star. Binary pulsars are one of the few objects which allow physicists to test general relativity because of the strong gravitational fields in their vicinities. Although the binary companion to the pulsar is usually difficult or impossible to observe directly, its presence can be deduced from the timing of the pulses from the pulsar itself, which can be measured with extraordinary accuracy by radio telescopes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gravitational-wave astronomy</span> Branch of astronomy using gravitational waves

Gravitational-wave astronomy is a subfield of astronomy concerned with the detection and study of gravitational waves emitted by astrophysical sources.

A pulsar timing array (PTA) is a set of galactic pulsars that is monitored and analysed to search for correlated signatures in the pulse arrival times on Earth. As such, they are galactic-sized detectors. Although there are many applications for pulsar timing arrays, the best known is the use of an array of millisecond pulsars to detect and analyse long-wavelength gravitational wave background. Such a detection would entail a detailed measurement of a gravitational wave (GW) signature, like the GW-induced quadrupolar correlation between arrival times of pulses emitted by different millisecond pulsar pairings that depends only on the pairings' angular separations in the sky. Larger arrays may be better for GW detection because the quadrupolar spatial correlations induced by GWs can be better sampled by many more pulsar pairings. With such a GW detection, millisecond pulsar timing arrays would open a new low-frequency window in gravitational-wave astronomy to peer into potential ancient astrophysical sources and early Universe processes, inaccessible by any other means.

The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a consortium of astronomers who share a common goal of detecting gravitational waves via regular observations of an ensemble of millisecond pulsars using the Green Bank Telescope, Arecibo Observatory, the Very Large Array, and the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). Future observing plans include up to 25% total time of the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA2000). This project is being carried out in collaboration with international partners in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array in Australia, the European Pulsar Timing Array, and the Indian Pulsar Timing Array as part of the International Pulsar Timing Array.

The International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) is a multi-institutional, multi-telescope collaboration comprising the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) in Australia, and the Indian Pulsar Timing Array Project (InPTA). The goal of the IPTA is to detect ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves, such as from mergers of supermassive black holes, using an array of approximately 30 pulsars. This goal is shared by each of the participating institutions, but they have all recognized that their goal will be achieved more quickly by combining their respective efforts and resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PSR J0348+0432</span> Pulsar–white dwarf binary system in Taurus constellation

PSR J0348+0432 is a pulsar–white dwarf binary system in the constellation Taurus. It was discovered in 2007 with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in a drift-scan survey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast radio burst</span> Astronomical high energy transient pulse

In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond, for an ultra-fast radio burst, to 3 seconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB releases as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days. While extremely energetic at their source, the strength of the signal reaching Earth has been described as 1,000 times less than from a mobile phone on the Moon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Bailes</span> Astrophysicist

Matthew Bailes is an astrophysicist and Professor at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology and the Director of OzGrav, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery. In 2015 he won an ARC Laureate Fellowship to work on Fast Radio Bursts. He is one of the most active researchers in pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts in the world. His research interests includes the birth, evolution of binary and millisecond pulsars, gravitational waves detection using an array of millisecond pulsars and radio astronomy data processing system design for Fast Radio Burst discovery. He is now leading his team to re-engineer the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope with a newly designed correlation system for observation of pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment</span> Canadian radio telescope

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is an interferometric radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia, Canada which consists of four antennas consisting of 100 x 20 metre cylindrical parabolic reflectors with 1024 dual-polarization radio receivers suspended on a support above them. The antenna receives radio waves from hydrogen in space at frequencies in the 400–800 MHz range. The telescope's low-noise amplifiers are built with components adapted from the cellphone industry and its data are processed using a custom-built FPGA electronic system and 1000-processor high-performance GPGPU cluster. The telescope has no moving parts and observes half of the sky each day as the Earth turns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingrid Stairs</span> Canadian astronomer

Ingrid Stairs is a Canadian astronomer currently based at the University of British Columbia. She studies pulsars and their companions as a way to study binary pulsar evolution, pulsar instrumentation and polarimetry, and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). She was awarded the 2017 Rutherford Memorial Medal for physics of the Royal Society of Canada, and was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duncan Lorimer</span> Astrophysicist

Duncan Ross Lorimer is a British-born American astrophysicist. He is a professor of physics and astronomy at West Virginia University, known for the discovery of the first fast radio burst in 2007.

Steven L. Detweiler was a theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of Florida best known for proposing pulsar timing arrays as a means to detect gravitational waves, an idea that led to the discovery of a stochastic gravitational wave background in 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 McLaughtlin, Maura Ann (2001). Multi-wavelength studies of rotation-driven pulsars. cornell.edu (PhD thesis). Cornell University. OCLC   51595146. ProQuest   304690043.
  2. 1 2 M A McLaughlin; A G Lyne; D R Lorimer; et al. (16 February 2006). "Transient radio bursts from rotating neutron stars". Nature . 439 (7078): 817–820. arXiv: astro-ph/0511587 . Bibcode:2006Natur.439..817M. doi: 10.1038/NATURE04440 . ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   16482150. Wikidata   Q28297741.
  3. John Antoniadis; Paulo C C Freire; Norbert Wex; et al. (1 April 2013). "A massive pulsar in a compact relativistic binary". Science . 340 (6131): 448, 1233232. arXiv: 1304.6875 . Bibcode:2013Sci...340..448A. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.1233232. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   23620056. Wikidata   Q34341376.
  4. S. P. Tendulkar; C. G. Bassa; J. M. Cordes; et al. (4 January 2017). "The Host Galaxy and Redshift of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 834 (2): 7–7. arXiv: 1701.01100 . Bibcode:2017ApJ...834L...7T. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/834/2/L7 . ISSN   2041-8205. Wikidata   Q57628394.
  5. 1 2 "Shaw Prize 2023". shawprize.org.
  6. 1 2 Festival, USA Science. "USA Science and Engineering Festival - McLaughlin Maura". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-10.
  7. "Exotic Stars Are Testing Einstein's Predictions | Benefunder". benefunder.com. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  8. 1 2 3 "WVU Astrophysicist Making Waves, Discovering New Pulsars". The Neuron. Winter 2011.[ failed verification ]
  9. 1 2 "Scientist Spotlight – Dr. Maura McLaughlin". Science & Research. 2011-09-21. Retrieved 2016-12-10.
  10. Emmanuel Fonseca; Timothy T. Pennucci; Justin A. Ellis; et al. (1 December 2016). "The NANOGrav nine-year data set: mass and geometric measurements of binary millisecond pulsars". The Astrophysical Journal . 832 (2): 167–167. arXiv: 1603.00545 . Bibcode:2016ApJ...832..167F. doi: 10.3847/0004-637X/832/2/167 . ISSN   0004-637X. Wikidata   Q57450560.
  11. "Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein's Prediction". LIGO Lab | Caltech. Retrieved 2016-12-10.
  12. "APS Fellow Archive". aps.org. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  13. "National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members". nasonline.org. 30 April 2024. Retrieved 12 May 2024.