Speaker
Description
The year 2025 marks ten years since the landmark detection of GW150914, which inaugurated gravitational-wave astronomy. Across four observing runs of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) network, more than 300 events — primarily binary black hole mergers — have been detected, enabled by steady improvements in detector sensitivity and a rapidly expanding observable volume. These discoveries have reshaped our understanding of compact-object populations, binary evolution, and the astrophysics of strong-field gravity, while providing new tools for cosmology and fundamental physics. Yet, major questions remain regarding formation channels, population evolution, and the broader role of gravitational waves in multi-messenger astronomy. This talk will synthesize the key lessons from the first decade of observations and outline the scientific frontier for the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors.