Speaker
Prof.
Ken-ichi Oohara
(Niigata University)
Description
The gravitational-wave signal GW150914 from merging black holes was observed on 14 September 2015 by the Advanced LIGO. It is not only the first detection of gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein just a century ago, but also the first observational evidence for the existence of binary black holes and relatively heavy, stellar-mass black holes larger than 25 solar masses. It has also inaugurated a new era of gravitational-wave astrophysics. I will explain what is gravitational waves and how we observe them. The gravitational-wave signals from various types of astronomical sources are generally buried in the noise of the detector and thus various tools of data analysis are indispensable to extract the signal from the noise. I will describe gravitational-wave data analysis. Finally, collaboration of multiple detectors is essential to realize gravitational-wave astrophysics. I will thus introduce the Japanese project KAGRA.
Welcome to the field of gravitational-wave astrophysics.
Primary author
Prof.
Ken-ichi Oohara
(Niigata University)
