I am pleased and proud to report that the award of Sammanani (Shakya) Premachandra's PhD degree was approved last week. Shakya's thesis, entitled "Precision ephemerides of neutron star binaries to assist gravitational wave searches: Sco X-1 & Cyg X-2" was submitted last September. Her thesis involved extensive analyses of optical data of candidate gravitational wave sources Scorpius X-1 and Cygnus X-2, with a view towards improving the precision of binary orbital parameters and hence making more sensitive searches for gravitational waves in future with advanced-LIGO. The system parameters she has established for the two best candidate sources have already been utilised by the LSC's continuous-wave group in a mock data challenge to compare various search algorithms. These parameters will also serve as crucial input parameters to the actual searches, expected as soon as advanced-LIGO comes on line later this year. Congratulations Shakya!

Labels: 2015, /postgrads