Virginia Tech Professor says gravitational wave discovery will further his research

We at ZYGO, first of all, acknowledge the tremendous achievement made by this outstanding team of global scientists, who devoted significant portions of their lives to the pursuit of this elusive discovery, which literally extends the boundaries of our knowledge of the universe.

Several of the RIT researchers are listed on the 12 companion papers, including “Astrophysical Implication of the Binary Black-hole Merger GW150914”, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. This first detection of gravitational waves occurred on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (9:51 UTC) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. The two black holes that collided were respectively about 29 times and 36 times the mass of our sun (shown in the computer visualisation below).

All detectors are not operational at the same time, and the VIRGO detector in Italy was shut when the LIGO observatory made this path-breaking discovery.

Over large distances however, gravitational waves usually fade as their energy dissipates, turning into no more than a whisper, leading scientists to fear that they would never be able to detect their existence.

As per the U.S. statement, Indian scientists at RRCAT have designed a special testing/prototype facility for receiving Advanced LIGO parts, have been training the teams that will install and commission the detector and are now cross-checking the IPR vacuum system drawings against the Advanced LIGO detector drawings to ensure a good fit and rapid installation for the third Advanced LIGO detector.

Many scientists, such as LIGO veteran Kip Thorne, have pointed out that the collaboration’s results have opened a new window onto the universe. Dr. Gebhardt is an expert on black holes.

She described general relativity as predicting that masses bend the fabric of space-time, and gravitational waves as ripples in that surface that cause a slight change in distances between objects.

Ridza explained that the discovery is a major breakthrough because gravitational waves are minute disturbances that are very hard to detect. UMD Physics Professors Emeriti Ho Jung Paik and Jean-Paul Richard improved on Weber’s technique to develop more sensitive resonant detectors. Today we can detect neutron stars which are 200 million light years away while Advanced LIGO and LIGO-India will increase the ability to detect stars as far as 600 million light years away.

Indeed, for Turok, this is what is most exciting about aLIGO’s discovery, which he says “may mark a bit of a transition as gravitational-wave observatories become the high-energy colliders of the future as we probe gravity and other extremely basic physics”. “We’re one of a handful of groups worldwide developing the tools and performing the simulations needed to interpret phenomena dominated by strong-field physics in Einstein’s theory of gravity”.

The problem is observing such binary black holes.

“As part of his theory of relativity and now it’s something we can actually prove”, O’Leary said.

There is, even more, good news.

What should we make of the detection of gravitational waves, reported last week to spectacular acclaim?