Gravitational Wave Symposium

Wednesday 26 Oct 2016, 09:00 → 18:00 Europe/London

Imperial College London

A half day physics meeting on gravitational waves. 

Leading scientists from the Astro and HEP communities will present the recent discovery of gravitational waves and future prospects of this new field in fundamental physics. The talks are aimed at interested researchers at all levels across all of London's universities. 

Registration free at charge required for organisational reasons.

 

Invited Speakers:

• Dr Gabriela Gonzalez (LSU, USA), LIGO spokesperson
• Dr Marcelle Soares­-Santos (Fermilab, USA), DES & LIGO collaborator
• Dr Eugene Lim (King's College London) - Theory
• Prof Tim Sumner (Imperial College London) - LISA
• Prof Giles Hammond (Edinburgh) - UK contributions

 

We appreciate the support by the various universities in and around London and the Astro, Gravitational Wave and HEP branches of the IOP to organise this event.

 Organising Committee:

• Bjoern Penning (Bristol & Imperial College London)
• Andreas Korn (University College London)
• Teppei Katori (Queen Mary)

Advisory Committee:

• John Ellis (King's College London)
• Malcolm Fairbairn (King's College London)
• Marcella Bona (Queen Mary)
• Hiranya Peiris (University College London)
• Lucian Harland-Lang (University College London)

 

 

 

14:00 → 14:55 Searching for – and finding! gravitational waves

On September 14 2015, the two LIGO gravitational wave detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana registered a nearly simultaneous signal with time-frequency properties consistent with gravitational-wave emission by the merger of two massive compact objects. Further analysis of the signals by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration revealed that the gravitational waves detected by LIGO came from the merger of a binary black hole (BBH) system. This observation, followed by another one in December 2015, marked the beginning of gravitational wave astronomy. I will describe some details of the observation, the status of LIGO and Virgo ground-based interferometric detectors, and prospects for future observations.

Speaker: Prof. Gabriela Gonzalez (Louisiana State U, LIGO)

14:55 → 15:20 Gravitational Waves from GR and Beyond

I will review the theory behind gravitational waves: what are they and how do we calculate them in theory and practice, in particular for the aLIGO. I will then discuss what the recent LIGO detections can serve as tests of GR and other exotic physics.

Speaker: Eugene Lim (KCL)

15:20 → 15:40 Coffee break

15:40 → 16:05 Searches for optical signatures of gravitational wave events in the Dark Energy Survey

In this talk I present recent results of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) searches for optical counterparts to gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO/Virgo interferometers. DES is the greatest optical imaging survey yet, aiming at percent-level precision measurements of cosmological parameters from a combination of probes such as type Ia supernovae, galaxy clusters, and weak gravitational lensing. With a wide field of view and a large aperture telescope, the DES camera is well matched to the challenge. Our program achieves greater sensitivity than any other optical facility. In this talk I will also briefly discuss exciting prospect for future observing campaigns.

Speaker: Marcelle Soares-Santos (Fermilab)

Soares-Santos_DESGW_v30.pdf

16:05 → 16:30 Opening up another gravitational window on the Universe: The LISA low-frequency gravitational wave mission

ESA has adopted ‘The Gravitational Universe’ as the science theme for its L3 mission which will be launched in the time frame 2029-2034. With the resounding success of the LISA Pathfinder mission, and the re-entry of NASA, the most likely mission scenario is LISA-like. The LISA Pathfinder results will be summarised and the consequent LISA science capabilities will be described. The mission timeline and technologies will be outlined.

Speaker: Timothy Sumner (Imperial College London)

16:30 → 16:55 UK Hardware Development for Advanced LIGO

The Advanced LIGO detectors in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington are the most sensitive length measuring devices in the world. Technology developed and delivered under the UK ALUK project include the fused silica monolithic suspensions, optical sensors/electromagnetics actuators and high voltage driver amplifiers. In this talk I will provide an overview of the fused silica suspension technology, pioneered in GEO 600, and the ongoing support/characterisation work at the sites.

Speaker: Prof. Giles Hammond (Edinburgh)

17:00 → 17:30 Reception