Gravitational waves: Discovery, Detection and Future

by A/Prof Bram Slagmolen (The Australian National University, Canberra)

Friday 4 Oct 2024, 10:00 → 11:15 Europe/Stockholm

FD5 (AlbaNova Main Building)

Abstract:

The direct detection and discovery of the first gravitational waves by gravitational wave detectors first made 'waves' in 2017. This was an exciting achievement in the scientific world and for the general public. These detectors observed the gravitational wave signature of the merger of two black holes in the universe which was made possible by the marvellous detector design and its engineering and the combination of this science and engineering captured public attention and made various concepts of Einstein’s theory, curvature of space-time accessible. Since 2017, more events have been observed, and detector improvements have been implemented. To date, these suspended mass, laser interferometer based gravitational wave detectors are the most sensitive displacement sensors in the world! Even more, their performance is enhanced by controlling the quantum state of the light within the interferometer across the full frequency range of interest for the detector. Various engineering techniques are combined to achieve this performance and makes these machines some of the largest quantum enhanced sensors. In my presentation, I will cover some of the exciting astrophysical outcomes, discuss some of the latest techniques and plans to improve the performance of the suspended mass, laser interferometer based gravitational wave detectors. I will then conclude with some future plans to potentially observe all the binary neutron star merger in the Universe.

Speaker Bio : A/Prof Bram Slagmolen is a research scientist and academic in the Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics at the Australian National University since early 2000. He designed and build complex opto-mechanical instrumentation for the Advanced LIGO project. He is a chief investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery. His research interest covers the development of opto-mechanical instrumentation and metrology to improve the sensitivity of current and future gravitational wave detectors. He received his BSc/Hon at the TH Rijswijk, Den Haag (Netherland) in Photonics (1998), and obtained his PhD in Experimental Physics from the ANU (2005). He worked as a Project Scientist at University of Western Australia at the Gingin research facility, was awarded an ARC APD and ARC Future Fellowship.