GWITCHHUNTERS – A CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS

Gravitational wave detectors are complex instruments devoted to the formidable task of measuring spacetime deformations as small as a thousandth of the size of the atomic nucleus, like those produced by the signals originating from the coalescence of compact stars. GWitchHunters is a citizen science project aimed at promoting the study of the Universe carried out with these detectors and the ongoing activities to improve their sensitivity to newer and further sources of gravitational waves. In order to reach the vastest possible audience, we have developed new strategies to present detector data in the form of images and sounds. Moreover, citizens are invited to contribute themselves to the improvement of these detectors by completing simple tasks, inspired by those actually carried out by researchers, that consist in identifying relations and patterns in the data. This constitutes an important aid to the detector characterization activity conducted by the scientists. All of this is proposed via the Zooniverse web platform, where citizens can get to know about the research on gravitational waves and enjoy giving their contribution to this field.