Einstein@Home is a project developed to search data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and from the GEO 600 gravitational wave observatory in Germany for signals coming from extremely dense, rapidly rotating stars. Such sources are believed to be either quark stars or neutron stars, and a subclass of these are already observed by conventional means as pulsars or X-ray emitting celestial objects. Scientists believe that some of these compact stars may not be perfectly spherical, and if so, they should emit characteristic gravitational waves, which LIGO and GEO 600 may begin to detect in coming months.
How can you help?
Einstein@Home will rely on private owners of PCs, like you, to donate computer time to the analysis of LIGO data. All you'll have to do is install a small, screen saver program to your computer. The screen saver will automatically download a tiny portion of the enormous data set that LIGO will collect. When your computer is otherwise idle, it will analyze the data and send it back to the LIGO scientists. The screen saver only runs when you're not using the computer, or when you choose to manually turn the program on. Einstein@Home will not affect your computer's performance.
We are fortunate to have David Anderson, the pioneering developer of SETI@Home, helping us put the Einstein@Home project together. SETI@Home is a revolutionary distributed computing program that searches data from the Arecibo radio observatory for signs of extraterrestrial life. The total computing power donated to SETI@Home currently far exceeds the capabilities of any super computer yet built.