Gravity and astrophysics at UMiss

We are pleased to announce that the Mississippi LIGO Team has been awarded the grant Mississippi Participation in LIGO’s Search for Gravitational Waves: Getting Ready for Advanced LIGO from the National Science Foundation. Expected duration of the award is three years, starting July 1st, 2011.

Astronomy’s New Messengers: Listening to the Universe with Gravitational Waves, the public outreach project directed by Marco is live again! The LIGO exhibit, designed by the New York-based firm L.H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership and renown artist Leni Schwendinger will be on view at Shawnee State University in Ohio from Friday, April 15 through Friday, Aug. 29. The small portable version of Astronomy’s New Messengers is on display at the University of Texas at Arlington, near Dallas. More information at the exhibit website.

The gravity group has several visitors this spring:

Johan Noldus is visiting for about two months (mid March-mid May), and he will give two seminars at our weekly gravity group meeting. The seminars are scheduled for 3/29 and 4/5.

Cosimo Bambi (Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, Tokyo) will visit on 4/13-4/17. He will also give a seminar for the gravity group on 4/14.

Lucia Santamaria (Caltech) will visit from 4/17 to 4/23 and give a departmental colloquium on 4/19.

Szabolcs Marka (Columbia University) will give a departmental colloquium on 5/3.

Brett Bolen will visit Ole Miss to do research starting 5/10, and he will be here until late July.

Welcome everybody!