Ruth Durrer: A Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background

Tuesday 10 Mar 2026, 13:15 → 14:00 Europe/Stockholm

FB42 (AlbaNova Main Building)

Gravitational waves (GWs) have a very weak absorption cross section. This makes them difficult to observe on the one hand, but it  is also for this reason they carry pristine information from their generation mechanism. Their observation may allow  glimpses  back to the highest redshifts and energies in the Universe.

After a brief introduction to the significance of the observation of a stochastic gravitational wave background, I shall  concentrate on two possibilities: Generating gravitational waves from violent processes in the post-inflationary Universe and generating them during inflation. I shall show that in both cases different universal GW spectra are generated. I shall also discuss what we may learn from their observation.

About the speaker:  RD has studied in Zürich, followed by research stays in Cambridge, UK and Princeton USA. In 1995 she became full professor at Geneva University where she is emerite professor now. RD has worked on various topics in cosmology ranging from inflation over phase transitions in the early universe to the Cosmic Microwave Background and structure formation. She also wrote a Monograph on the Cosmic Microwave Background.