07/06/2020
Tomorrow we will be hosting a virtual ‘Astronomy Night at Noon’ presentation (Tuesday July 7 at 12 noon, CST). We'd love to see some of our emeritus participants! Please e-mail me (rhynes@lsu.edu) if you'd like a Zoom invite.
Every year the Physics and Astronomy REU program at Louisiana State University hosts an ‘Astronomy’ night, featuring an astronomy-themed presentation, physics demonstrations by REU students, and sky viewing through our campus observatory. As we are running a remote program this year, no demonstrations or sky viewing are possible, but we are still going ahead with an ‘Astronomy Night at Noon’ presentation. We are fortunate to have a very distinguished speaker: Professor Gabriela González will tell us about astronomy with gravitational waves, a field that knows no distinction between day and night.
Professor Gabriela González is a leader in the worldwide search for gravitational waves and in particular within the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. She was the Collaboration spokesperson from 2011 to 2017 and was incredibly fortunate to have held the role when the Nobel Prize winning announcement of the first detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes was made 2016. Prof. González received her bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and her doctorate from Syracuse University. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has received many accolades for her work, including being named one of the top ten scientists in the world by the journal Nature.
Tuesday, July 7, 12 noon CST
Gravitational Waves Astronomy
Gabriela González, Louisiana State University (results presented on
behalf of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo
Collaboration)
The first detection of gravitational waves in 2015 by the LIGO detectors, created by the merger of black holes more than a billion years ago, was followed by several other signals from black holes. In 2017, the merger of neutron stars was detected by LIGO and Virgo detectors and by gamma-ray telescopes, and was found by many electromagnetic observations too: a new era of gravitational wave astrophysics has started with very bright prospects for the future. In April 2019, LIGO and Virgo started taking data again, and many more merging black holes and neutron stars have been discovered. We will describe the technology involved in the LIGO gravitational wave detectors, details of the latest discoveries and the exciting prospects for more detections in the next years.
