Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger by LIGO [Note special day]

by Sergey Klimenko (University of Florida)

Monday 29 Feb 2016, 15:00 → 16:30 US/Eastern

Lmall Seminar Room (Universe)

Abstract On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Hanford, WA, and Livingston, LA, observatories detected a strong coincident signal. The signal matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. A century after the fundamental predictions of Einstein and Schwarzschild, the gravitational waves are captured. I will present the details of this observation and discuss the results.