UMD Physicists are heavily involved with the LIGO collaboration, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory that detects and analyzes gravitational waves to study distant celestial phenomena. Several recent papers have announced important new findings. One highlight is the observation of merging black holes including the largest one yet observed in such a merger.

 The merger of these massive objects distorts spacetime around it, creating a ripple that we can detect here on earth through the use of extremely precise interferometery. Some of you may recall presentations we hosted a few years ago when LIGO announced their first detections. New research from this team is coming in all the time!

 Read more about recent discoveries:

• Maryland Today: Heaviest Black Hole Merger Spotted

• CMNS: Heaviest Black Hole Merger is Among Three Recent Gravitational Wave Discoveries

• Physical Review Letters: R. Abbott et al. (2 Sept 2020). “GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150M⊙.”

• Astrophysical Journal Letters: R. Abbott et al. (2 Sept 2020). “Properties and Astrophysical Implications of the 150 M ⊙ Binary Black Hole Merger GW190521.”

• Upcoming in IOP’s Classical and Quantum Gravity: Sullivan et al. “Can we use next-generation gravitational wave detectors for terrestrial precision measurements of Shapiro delay?”

   

More places to visit:

• UMD Physics Gravitation Experiment Group
• UMD Physics Gravitation Theory Group
• LIGO Homepage