Gravity and astrophysics at UMiss

LISA Pathfinder, the technology demonstration mission for a space-based detector, demonstrated that two test masses can be put in free fall with a relative acceleration sufficiently free of noise to meet the requirements needed for space-based gravitational-wave detection.

The LISA Pathfinder results were published in Physical Review Letters with a Physics Viewpoint by David Reitze. Pathfinder greatly exceeds the mission requirements set for “differential acceleration noise” (the frequency-dependent residual acceleration between the masses). The most impressive result is that Pathfinder even exceeds the LISA noise requirement over the high-frequency range above 10 mHz, and comes close over much of the low frequency range. Look at that Figure 1 in the paper…

Congratulations to the Pathfinder team!

Two more recognitions for LIGO! The 2016 Shaw Prize in Astronomy  is awarded to Ron Drever, Kip Thorne and Rai Weiss for conceiving and designing the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), whose recent direct detection of gravitational waves opens a new window in astronomy, with the first remarkable discovery being the merger of a pair of stellar mass black holes. The 2016 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics is also awarded to Ron Drever, Kip Thorne and Rai Weiss for the direct detection of gravitational waves. From the Kavli release: “The detection of gravitational waves is an achievement for which hundreds of scientists, engineers and technicians around the world share credit. Drever, Thorne and Weiss stand out: their ingenuity, inspiration, intellectual leadership and tenacity were the driving force behind this epic discovery.”

Another award for Ron Drever, Kip Thorne, Rai Weiss and all members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration! The Gruber foundation has recognized LIGO’s work by awarding to the LSC the 2016 Cosmology Prize. Congratulations, LIGO!

The Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has been awarded to the founders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) group, Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss, and Ronald Drever, and scores of physicists and engineers from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration. Drever, Thorne and Weiss will share $1m between them, with the remaining $2m shared equally among the 1,012 other researchers and engineers on the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration. The prize will be awarded at a formal ceremony later this year. Congratulations, LIGO Team!

Hunter Gabbard’s poster presentation at the April 2016 APS meeting “A low-latency Glitch Classification Algorithm Based in Waveform Morphology” has been selected by the American Physical Society as one of the top presenters at the meeting. Congratulations, Hunter!