If you want to learn more about our volunteer distributed computing project @einsteinathome, you can read up on our online portal “Einstein Online”:

https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/eah/

As the gravitational-wave detectors become more sensitive, the @einsteinathome search for continuous gravitational waves gets closer to the first direct observation of these elusive waves.

Detecting them could reveal a hidden population of neutron stars in our Milky Way and provide new insights into matter and gravity under extreme conditions. Continuous gravitational waves could also come from clouds of dark matter around spinning black holes, or from orbiting pairs of light (primordial) black holes that formed shortly after the Big Bang.

In 2023, @einsteinathome teamed up with Zooniverse, a successful citizen science web portal. The project “Einstein@Home: Pulsar Seekers” trains volunteers on the Zooniverse platform to identify new pulsars by viewing graphical representations of Einstein@Home search results.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/einstein-at-home-pulsar-seekers

More than 3,500 volunteers have already classified almost half a million pulsar candidates. They have identified 16 possible new radio pulsars.

“We are now carefully analyzing confirmation observations of the 16 pulsar candidates made with the most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth,” says Bruce Allen. “I expect at least a few of them to be real, and I can’t wait to learn more about the latest discoveries we made thanks to the volunteers.”

In 2011, @einsteinathome researchers realized that the highly efficient methods they had developed to search for continuous gravitational waves could be put to an entirely new use. Working with colleagues at the @MPIfR_Bonn in Bonn, Germany, they set their sights on analyzing data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

In 2013, they reported the discovery of their first four gamma-ray pulsars found in Fermi data.

Over the next few years, the full discovery potential of Einstein@Home’s analysis of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope data became clear. Einstein@Home volunteers helped find 39 previously unknown gamma-ray pulsars. This corresponds to about one eighth of all known gamma-ray pulsars.

“One of the great things about the enormous collective computing power of Einstein@Home is that it lets us push the boundaries, and make discoveries that would be otherwise impossible,” says Colin Clark. “We have solved year-old mysteries, found a pulsar hidden in plain sight, the first millisecond pulsar visible only in gamma rays, and a record-breaking ‘spider pulsar’ that evaporates its lightweight companion.”

To date, 55 radio pulsars have been discovered by @einsteinathome and its volunteers, and there may be many more to come.

“Einstein@Home has found radio pulsars in archival data that have been thoroughly analyzed many times before,” says Colin Clark, group leader of the Pulsars group at the @mpi_grav in Hannover, Germany. “This is why we expect to find many more exciting radio pulsars with Einstein@Home in the future.”

Discoveries in Arecibo data: https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/rediscovery_page/rediscoveries.html and https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/BRP4_discoveries/

Discoveries in data from the Murriyang telescope at Parkes Observatory: https://einsteinathome.org/radiopulsar/html/PMPS_discoveries/

In 2009, @einsteinathome expanded its scope to search for radio pulsars in data from the Arecibo radio telescope. Like a cosmic lighthouse, this type of neutron star emits regular pulses of radio waves that can be observed with large radio telescopes.

“We realized that Einstein@Home’s computing power could be put to good use by helping to search for pulsars in binary systems in data from the Arecibo pulsar survey,” says Bruce Allen. “We also knew that it would be many years before we and our volunteers might finally see the first continuous gravitational-wave detection. Finding new, possibly exotic, radio pulsars would keep all of us motivated toward that long-term goal.”

In the summer of 2010, Einstein@Home found a new radio pulsar in Arecibo data, marking the first astronomical discovery by a distributed volunteer computing project. The pulsar was a rare and unusual type of neutron star, with only a dozen similar examples known at the time. “This was a milestone for us and our volunteers. It proved that citizen science and public participation can make a difference in astronomy and other data-driven sciences,” says Bruce Allen.

The long-term goal of @einsteinathome is to detect continuous gravitational waves. Astronomers believe that neutron stars – exotic, compact remnants of exploded massive stars – can produce these tiny ripples in space-time as they spin.

M. Alessandra Papa, leader of the permanent independent research group “Continuous Gravitational Waves” at the @mpi_grav in Hannover, Germany, explains:

“Since we started Einstein@Home our searches for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars have always been the most sensitive.

Thanks to the efficient analysis methods we have developed, we can make the best use of the enormous computing power donated by our volunteers. We are ‘digging deep’ for faint signals hidden in the gravitational-wave data and look forward to more data being released soon to farther our investigations.”

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xIAHdDipNg

Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=7xIAHdDipNg