Gravity and astrophysics at UMiss

Davide spent the summer at the California Institute of Technology working on a LIGO REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) project supervised by Emanuele Berti and Yanbei Chen. He will visit Ole Miss until December to work on his Laurea thesis at the University of Milan under the joint supervision of Emanuele and Giuseppe Lodato. In collaboration with Ulrich Sperhake, Michael Kesden and others, Davide will study the dynamics of spinning, precessing black hole binaries. Welcome Davide!

We just learned very good news from the National Science Foundation. On August 23, the National Science Board met to discuss (among other topics)  the change in scope for Advanced LIGO that would be needed to install a LIGO detector in India. They approved the following resolution:

“RESOLVED, that the National Science Board authorize the Deputy Director at her discretion to approve the proposed Advanced LIGO Project change in scope, enabling plans for the relocation of an advanced detector to India.”

This decision brings us a lot closer to seeing LIGO-India as a scientific reality. Many thanks go to all in the LIGO Laboratory, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and the National Science Foundation that made this possible!

Michael Horbatsch just moved to Oxford to start a postdoctoral appointment with Emanuele. Welcome Michael!

The fall semester’s first meeting of the Oxford Science Cafe’ is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 21 at Lusa Pastry Cafe’, 1120 North Lamar Ave. in Oxford. Our beloved department Chairman, Dr. Lucien Cremaldi, will discuss “My Memories of the Higgs boson.” Read more on Ole Miss News

Domizia and Daniele (University of Pisa) will spend their summer at Ole Miss working with Marco on LIGO-related science. Their work will focus on developing new tools for data analysis and detector characterization of Advanced LIGO. Domizia and Daniele will stay with us for about 10 weeks. Welcome to our group!