Proceedings of the 12th Gravitational Wave Data Analysis Workshop (GWDAW 12), Cambridge, MA, USA, 13–16 December 2007

Abstract

It was a great pleasure and an honor for us to host the 12thGravitational Wave Data Analysis Workshop (GWDAW) at MIT and the LIGOLaboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the place where this workshopseries started in 1996. This time the conference was held at theconference facilities of the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge from13–16 December, 2007.This 12th GWDAW found us with the ground interferometers having justcompleted their most sensitive search for gravitational waves and asthey were starting their preparation to bring online and/or proposemore sensitive instruments. Resonant mass detectors continued toobserve the gravitational wave sky with instruments that have beenoperating now for many years. LISA, the Laser Interferometer SpaceAntenna, was recently reviewed by NASA's Beyond Einstein ProgramAssessment Committee (BEPAC) convened by the National Research Council(NRC) and found that 'on purely scientific grounds LISA is the missionthat is the most promising and least scientifically risky…thus,the committee gave LISA its highest scientific ranking'. Even so,JDEM, the Joint Dark Energy Mission, was identified to go first, withLISA following a few years after.New methods, analysis ideas, results from the analysis of datacollected by the instruments, as well as Mock Data Challenges for LISAwere reported in this conference. While data from the most recent runsof the instruments are still being analyzed, the first upper limit results showhow even non-detection statements can be interesting astrophysics.Beyond these traditional aspects of GWDAW though, for the first timein this workshop we tried to bring the non-gravitational wave physicsand astronomy community on board in order to present, discuss andpropose ways to work together as we pursue the first detection ofgravitational waves and as we hope to transition to gravitational waveastronomy in the near future. Overview talks by colleagues leadingobservations in the electromagnetic and particle spectrum, from what isexpected to be common sources of gravitational and electromagneticradiation as well as neutrinos, have created great excitement, livelydiscussions and have given birth to collaborations for joint analysesand observations. A special thank you to our non-gravitational wavepresenters and participants for making the time to join us. We hopethis will be the beginning of a long tradition for this workshop.In this workshop we also introduced the student prize for the bestposter. Twenty student posters participated in this competition.Pinkesh Patel of Caltech was the prize winner on a 'ResamplingTechnique to Calculate the F-statistic', co-authored with X Siemens andR Dupuis. We are grateful to the MIT Kavli Institute for providingthe financial support for the cash prize that accompanied this.We would like to thank the local and international organizingcommittees for putting together a great scientific program, all theconference presenters and participants and finally the CQG editorialstaff for making this conference proceeding volume happen.