Research Program
My research applies differential geometry and signal processing to gravitational-wave astronomy. The detectors record a weak signal buried in noise whose statistical properties change over time. Most of my work concerns how to search that data efficiently, quickly, and without bias.
Searches for Compact Binary Mergers
I develop methods for the matched-filter searches that detect merging black holes and neutron stars. This includes the construction of template banks using information geometry, where the Fisher information metric defines the distance between waveforms and sets how densely the parameter space must be covered. I also work on searches for sub-solar-mass compact objects, which no known astrophysical process produces and which would point to primordial black holes.
Early Warning and Multi-Messenger Astronomy
A binary neutron star merger can be detected in gravitational waves seconds before the collision. Detecting it early enough for telescopes to observe the electromagnetic counterpart requires reducing search latency toward its causal limit. My work on zero-latency whitening and on correcting the biases introduced by drifting detector noise is aimed at this problem.
Gauge Theoretic Signal Processing
Gauge theoretic signal processing recasts adaptive whitening of nonstationary noise as parallel transport on a principal bundle. The framework gives a coordinate-independent measure of noise drift and a geometrically exact causal whitening filter, which has been implemented and validated in a production LIGO search pipeline.
Geometric Detector Characterization
Treating the detector noise spectrum as a point on a Riemannian manifold and tracking its velocity gives a new channel for identifying transient noise artifacts (glitches). This work is in collaboration with Louisiana State University.
Applications to Naval Acoustics
The central problem above, recovering a weak signal from colored, nonstationary noise, also arises in underwater acoustics. The same methods apply to passive sonar, where the ambient ocean environment drifts in the same way.
LIGO at USNA
The Naval Academy is a member group of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. The group works in the Gravitational Wave Lab (Chauvenet Hall 085).
Publications
Complete and current lists: INSPIRE, NASA ADS, ORCID.
Journal Articles and Preprints
- J. Kennington and J. Black, "Gauge Theoretic Signal Processing II: Implementation and Validation for Gravitational-Wave Run O4/O5," under review, Phys. Rev. D. arXiv:2604.25116
- J. Kennington and J. Black, "Gauge Theoretic Signal Processing I: The Commutative Formalism for Single-Detector Adaptive Whitening," submitted, Phys. Rev. D. arXiv:2604.06432
- J. Kennington and Z. Yarbrough, "Fisher Information Velocity: A New Geometric Channel for Precision Glitch Identification in Gravitational-Wave Detectors," Phys. Rev. D 114, 044083 (2026). [journal] [arXiv]
- J. Kennington, "Dual Cutler-Vallisneri Corrections: Mitigating PSD Drift in Zero-Latency Gravitational-Wave Searches," Phys. Rev. D (2026). [journal] [arXiv]
- Y.-J. Huang, C. Hanna, B. Ewing, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "Scalable matched-filtering pipeline for gravitational-wave searches of compact binary mergers," Phys. Rev. D 112, 082002 (2025).
- C. Hanna, J. Kennington, W. Niu, S. Sakon, et al., "Template bank for subsolar mass compact binary mergers in the fourth observing run of Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA," Phys. Rev. D 112, 044013 (2025). [journal]
- S. Schmidt, S. Caudill, J. D. E. Creighton, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "Searching for Asymmetric and Heavily Precessing Binary Black Holes in the Gravitational Wave Data from the LIGO Third Observing Run," Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 201401 (2024).
- S. Schmidt, S. Caudill, J. D. E. Creighton, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "Searching for gravitational-wave signals from precessing black hole binaries with the GstLAL pipeline," Phys. Rev. D 110, 023038 (2024).
- S. Sakon, L. Tsukada, H. Fong, J. Kennington, et al., "Template bank for compact binary mergers in the fourth observing run of Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA," Phys. Rev. D 109, 044066 (2024).
- B. Ewing, R. Huxford, D. Singh, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "Performance of the low-latency GstLAL inspiral search towards LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA's fourth observing run," Phys. Rev. D 109, 042008 (2024).
- C. Hanna, J. Kennington, S. Sakon, et al., "Binary tree approach to template placement for searches for gravitational waves from compact binary mergers," Phys. Rev. D 108, 042003 (2023). [journal]
- L. Tsukada, P. Joshi, S. Adhicary, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "Improved ranking statistics of the GstLAL inspiral search for compact binary coalescences," Phys. Rev. D 108, 043004 (2023).
- A. Ray, W. Niu, S. Sakon, ..., J. Kennington, et al., "When to Point Your Telescopes: Gravitational Wave Trigger Classification for Real-Time Multi-Messenger Followup Observations," arXiv:2306.07190 (2023).
Collaboration Papers
As a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, I am an author on collaboration papers, listed in full on INSPIRE.
Midshipman Research
I supervise independent study, capstone, and Trident Scholar projects in gravitational-wave data analysis. Projects use real LIGO data and the open-source software the collaboration runs in production, and midshipmen in the group can take part in LIGO collaboration work. Programming experience helps but is not required. Midshipmen of any major are welcome; email kenningt@usna.edu.
Current Midshipmen
- MIDN Madelynne Greenway: independent study, an introductory compact binary search on LIGO data (Fall 2026)
- MIDN 1/C Bryce Allen: senior capstone, geometric source detection (Spring 2027)
Open Projects
- Extending the sub-solar-mass template bank to spinning objects
- A glitch classifier built on Fisher information velocity, applied to O4 detector data
- Measuring detector noise drift and its effect on search latency
- Upper limits on an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background from O4 data
- Validating galaxy-catalog priors for binary black hole mergers in active galactic nuclei
- A search for post-merger echoes in public LIGO data
Software and Services
The research above is built on open-source software. Selected projects:
- sgn ecosystem (core developer): a framework for real-time gravitational-wave data processing, including the sgnl detection pipeline. [source]
- GWIStat (maintainer): the real-time detector status service used by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA collaborations and by astronomers following up on alerts. [service]
- manifold (core developer): information-geometric template placement for compact binary searches. [source]
- array-api-signal (sole developer): signal processing primitives that run on NumPy, PyTorch, or JAX through the Python Array API standard. [source]
More detail: jwkennington.com/tools.
Dr. Jim Kennington
Assistant Professor of Physics
The U.S. Naval Academy
Department of Physics
572C Holloway Road, Stop 9C
Annapolis, MD 21402
Email: kenningt@usna.edu
