TTU Physics: Faculty
Benjamin Owen
ProfessorOffice Phone: (806) 834-0231
Email: Benjamin.J.Owen@ttu.edu
Office: 11 Science Building
Ph.D., Physics, California Institute of Technology, 1998
B.S., Physics, Sonoma State University, 1993
Research Interests
My research is focused on getting astrophysical results out of searches for gravitational waves with LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. I work on all aspects of this problem, both independently and as part of the thousand-member LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC): My best known work is theoretical modeling of neutron stars and black holes as astrophysical sources, in particular showing that prospects for continuous waves might be much better than everyone thought. I have also made fundamental contributions to the mathematical framework of efficient and accurate data analysis. I supervised the building of one of the LSC data analysis pipelines, and now am improving it and running it myself with my group. I have provided astrophysical guidance and interpretation for many LSC results papers as astronomy liaison for the continuous waves group and chair of the internal review committee for the burst group, and made foundational contributions to the compact binary coalescence group as well. I am interested in recruiting group members to work on theory, data analysis (observations), and the interface between them.
Key Publications:
N. K. Johnson-McDaniel and B. J. Owen, "Maximum elastic deformations of relativistic stars," Phys. Rev. D 88, 044004 (2013)
J. Abadie, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), "Search for gravitational wave bursts from six magnetars," Astrophys. J. 734, L35 (2011)
J. Abadie, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration), "First search for gravitational waves from the youngest known neutron star," Astrophys. J. 722, 1504 - 1513 (2010)
N. K. Johnson-McDaniel, N. Yunes, W. Tichy, and B. J. Owen, "Conformally curved binary black hole data including tidal deformations and outgoing radiation," Phys. Rev. D 80, 124039 (2009)
L. Lindblom, B. J. Owen, and D. A. Brown, "Model waveform accuracy standards for gravitational wave data analysis," Phys. Rev. D 78, 124020 (2008)
B. Abbott, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration), "All-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S4 data," Phys. Rev. D 77, 022001 (2008)
B. J. Owen, "Maximum elastic deformations of compact stars with exotic equations of state," Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 211101 (2005)
B. J. Owen, L. Lindblom, C. Cutler, B. F. Schutz, A. Vecchio, and N. Andersson, "Gravitational waves from hot young rapidly rotating neutron stars," Phys. Rev. D 58, 084020 (1998)
L. Lindblom, B. J. Owen, and S. M. Morsink, "Gravitational radiation instability in hot young neutron stars," Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4843 - 4846 (1998)
B. J. Owen, "Search templates for gravitational waves from inspiraling binaries: Choice of template spacing," Phys. Rev. D 53, 6749 - 6761 (1996)