Postgraduate opportunities

We will be fabricating low-noise resonators with international partners in Austria, Taiwan, Holland and France.  These resonators are designed to have a macroscopic mass suspended with nanoscale suspension, in order to achieve extremely low mechanical coupling. We can then use radiation pressure to achieve thermal noise free optomechanics.
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Parametric instability is an intrinsic risk in high power laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors, in which the optical cavity modes interact with the acoustic modes of the mirrors leading to exponential growth of the acoustic vibration.  This project is to investigate and test methods to control the instabilities.
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Gravitational wave detectors are the most sensitive instruments ever built.  They require extremely high performance suspension systems with sophisticated control systems to isolate environmental noise.  Based on our innovative seismic isolation system, this project is to further improve the performance of the system using advance control schemes.

The advance of the next generation of airborne geophysical tools can uncover the deep Earth. State of the art gravity gradiometers and magnetometers are currently limited by aircraft motion and turbulence. In collaborating with industries, this project is to develop new vibration isolators and algorithms which will allow these instruments to image through increasing amounts of cover.
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This project is to evaluate that it is possible, and indeed beneficial, to begin to teach the concept of Einsteinian Physics at an early age. The PhD student will develop new curriculum materials with the help of physicists and will work with a few selected school groups.
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This project uses the UWA 1m robotic Zadko Telescope to perform the following transient sky science:

• Search for optical transients in coincidence with gravitational wave candidates triggered from LIGO
• Earth orbiting space debris identification and tracking
• Multi-messenger astronomy: optical observations combined with the ANTARES neutrino detector and the gravitational wave observatory LIGO to search for coincident transient phenomena

Projects involve collaborators in France.
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Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous electromagnetic transients in the Universe and are observed out to incredible distances. Combining the data from multi-wavelength observations over the last two decades have provided valuable insights into these bursts. However, there are still many outstanding questions: What are the engines that drive these explosions? What are their cosmic histories ? How are they related to Gravitational Wave sources ? This project seeks to understand and explore these violent cataclysmic transients.
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In this project you will collaborate with OzGrav and the LIGO-Virgo Scientific Collaboration to detect gravitational waves in real-time, interpret gravitational wave data, and send alerts to the global astronomy community.
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This project involves using gravitational wave data in conjunction with electromagnetic observations of events such as GRBs and FRBs to learn more about the astrophysics and cosmology of gravitational wave sources, with opportunities for collaboration with the LIGO-Virgo Scientific Collaboration, ICRAR-UWA, ICRAR-Curtin, MWA and ASKAP/CSIRO scientists.
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This project involves using computational methods such as machine learning and GPU acceleration to optimize the SPIIR pipeline’s gravitational wave search method, with opportunities to collaborate with scientists from OzGrav and the LIGO-Virgo Scientific Collaboration, ICRAR-UWA and UWA Computer Science.
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