Gravity and astrophysics at UMiss

LISA Pathfinder, the technology demonstration mission for the space-based gravitational-wave interferometer eLISA, was successfully launched on December 3. The launch was followed by six orbit-raising manoeuvres, the last of which was completed this past weekend, marking the formal end of the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP), and the start of approximately three months of commissioning. Pathfinder is now “en route to nothing”, traveling to a virtual point in space called the Sun-Earth Libration Point 1 (SEL1), 1.5 million km from Earth. For more info, see the LISA Pathfinder website and the ESA blog. Godspeed!

Our Topical Review Testing general relativity with present and future astrophysical observations was published today in Classical and Quantum Gravity. The idea to write this review was born in January 2014 during a workshop at the University of Mississippi. It took about one year to write the paper - a first version appeared on the arXiv in January 2015 - and almost one year to get it through refereeing and proofs, but we finally made it. Hopefully this review will be helpful to the community working on compact objects and experimental tests of strong gravity.

Leo Stein’s website has the numbers of this monster.