Niels Bohr Lecture by Professor David Reitze

Title:  Last Tango in Space-Time: Detecting Gravitational Waves From Binary Black Hole Mergers for the First Time Ever Using LIGO

David Reitze

David Reitze has authored 250 publications, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society.

Abstract: The first direct detections of gravitational waves in late 2015 were made possible by a forty year experimental campaign to design, build, and operate LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory.  

In this talk, I’ll cover gravitational waves and what makes them so difficult to detect and at the same time such powerful and unique probes of the universe. Most of the presentation will focus on the interferometers, the LIGO detections and their astrophysical implications.  

Time permitting, I’ll give a preview of where LIGO intends to go in the next decade and beyond.

 

  • AUD. 3 at HCØ, at 15:15, Wednesday, March 22, 2017

As usual, coffee, tea and cookies will be served in front of the auditorium at 15:00.

About David Reitze

  • David Reitze holds joint positions as the Executive Director of the LIGO Laboratory at the Caltech and a Professor of Physics at the University of Florida.  
  • David Reitze has authored 250 publications, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society.
  • He is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that was awarded the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the 2016 Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize, and the 2017 Rossi Prize of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.