PIRSA:17110047

Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves

Weiss, R. (2017). Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/17110047

Weiss, Rainer. Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves. Perimeter Institute, Nov. 30, 2017, https://pirsa.org/17110047 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:17110047,
            doi = {10.48660/17110047},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/17110047},
            author = {Weiss, Rainer},
            keywords = {Other},
            language = {en},
            title = {Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2017},
            month = {nov},
            note = {PIRSA:17110047 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Rai Weiss

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Talk number
PIRSA:17110047
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract

The observations of gravitational waves from the mergers of compact binary sources opens a new way to learn about the universe as well as to test General Relativity in the limit of strong gravitational interactions – the dynamics of massive bodies traveling at relativistic speeds in a highly curved space-time. The lecture will describe some of the difficult history of gravitational waves proposed about 100 years ago.  The concepts used in the instruments and the methods for data analysis that enable the measurement of gravitational wave strains of 10-21 and smaller will be presented. The results derived from the measured waveforms, their relation to the Einstein field equations and the astrophysical implications are discussed. The talk will end with a vision for the future of gravitational wave astronomy.