The Search for Gravitational Waves

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Alex Nitz (Courtesy of Detroit Free Press)

In this video from PASC18, Alexander Nitz from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany presents: The Search for Gravitational Waves.

The LIGO and Virgo detectors have completed a prolific observation run. We are now observing gravitational waves from both the mergers of binary black holes and neutron stars. We’ll discuss how these discoveries were made and look into what the near future of searching for gravitational waves from compact binary mergers will look like.”

Alexander Nitz, an alumnus of the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences, has been instrumental in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)’s third detection of gravitational waves, demonstrating that a new window onto astronomy is fully open. He earned a Ph.D. in physics, helped detect the signal on Jan. 4, 2017, using a software package he began developing at Syracuse. As was the case with LIGO’s first two detections, the wave in question came from the merger of two black holes, resulting in the formation of a single larger black hole. Nitz is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany. From 2010-15, he was a member of Syracuse’s Gravitational-Wave Research Group, part of the worldwide LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

See more talks in the PASC18 Video Gallery

PASC19 takes place June 12-14, 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland.

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