The Numerical INJection Analysis project (NINJA) is a collaboration between researchers in numerical relativity and gravitational wave data-analysis. The basic idea is to embed numerically computed gravitational waveforms into noise representative of the LIGO and VIRGO detectors. The resulting data-sets are then analysed to gain insight into the properties of gravitational wave data-analysis pipelines. The first NINJA project was a great success with the final paper being published in August.
A more ambitious follow-on project, NINJA-2, is just getting underway, and everybody interested in the project is welcome to join. The kick-off telecon for this project took place on October 15, 2009. NINJA-2 aims to examine non-precessing binary black holes in realistic detector noise: Long gravitational waveforms (obtained by combining an analytical post-Newtonian inspiral waveform with a fully numerical merger simulation) are injected into realistic LIGO/Virgo detector noise; the resulting data-sets are then analysed to gain insight into properties and efficiencies of data-analysis pipelines.
The minutes of this telecon, as well as further information about NINJA-2 are posted on the NINJA-webpage http://www.ninja-project.org. Follow-on discussions of the telecon are handled via the mailing list ninja@aei.mpg.de. Please subscribe to this list at
http://lists.aei.mpg.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ninja