Colloquium

Upcoming Colloquium

Gravitational Wave Astronomy - A New Window into the Universe
Dr. Jon Feicht, Caltech

March 9, 2026
11:00am in HSCI-105

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In 1915 Einstein postulated that gravitational waves, disturbances in space-time could exist, but doubted that they could ever be detected. Exactly 100 years later, the first direct observation of these waves, GW150914 was captured by the LIGO and Virgo Observatories. Generated by the coalescing of two black holes into one 63 solar mass black hole, GW150914 validated the LIGO interferometer design sensitivity and the spectral predictions of numerical relativity. In 2017 the developers of LIGO were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. In August 2017 LIGO captured the first binary neutron star coalescence, GW170817, this time followed by a suite of electromagnetic observations; the era of "multi-messenger" astronomy had arrived. In this talk we track the nearly 50-year journey of designing, building and operating LIGO, the most sensitive scientific instrument ever produced. We will also discuss recent upgrades such as squeezed light, which counteracts quantum fluctuations in the interferometers detection system. We will highlight some of the amazing engineering features of LIGO and what the next generation of observatories Cosmic Explorer, LISA, and the Einstein Telescope could achieve. Finally, we will summarize what we have learned in the gravitational wave astronomy epoch.

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