Tag Archives: gravitational waves

Fundamental physics with LISA, Florence, Italy

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Observations of astrophysical systems where gravity is extreme — highly-dynamical and/or non-linearly strong — have the potential to shed light on some of the most profound questions in physics today: from the nature of compact objects to whether Einstein’s theory accurately describes the merger of black holes. The first space-borne detector, LISA, a joint ESA-NASA mission is currently planned to be deployed in 2034, allowing for the first observation of the merger of supermassive black holes and of extreme mass-ratio inspirals. These observations will enable new accurate tests of general relativity, in particular in the strong regime.

We announce the Fundamental Physics with LISA workshop which will take place on November 12-14, 2018 at the Galileo Galilei Institute (Arcetri, Florence, IT). Its goal will be to discuss ways in which we can test General Relativity and learn about fundamental theoretical physics with future LISA observations.

For more information and registration, please visit the conference webpage: http://www.ggi.infn.it/showevent.pl?id=305

In order to encourage interaction and discussion, the workshop will bring together experts in theory, phenomenology, modeling and data analysis, and will have an unusual format. Each day will be centered around one of these facets, and consist of three topical sessions in which discussions will be moderated by a panel of three or four experts. The goal of the workshop is to foster fruitful interactions between different dimensions of LISA science. This will include the following topics:

* Model independent tests versus Model-Specific tests of GR.
* Tests of GR and inferences about physics from the inspiral of supermassive black holes.
* Tests of GR and inferences about physics from the ringdown of supermassive black hole merger.
* Tests of GR and inferences about physics from extreme mass-ratio inspirals.
* Inferences about the nature of supermassive black holes.
* Tests of superradiance and inferences about ultralight boson fields and fuzzy dark matter.
* Exotic compact objects, tests of the horizon, and GW echoes.
* Environmental effects

The number of participants is limited. The registration deadline is *Sepember 1st* or earlier if the capacity of the conference venue is reached. The conference fee (€60) includes lunch tickets for on-site catering.

## PROGRAM ##

DAY 1: THEORETICAL PHYSICS FOUNDATIONS
1A: Black holes
1B: Cosmology
1C: Gravity

DAY 2: INFERENCES
2A: Inferences on exotic objects
2B: Inferences on particle physics
2C: Inferences on theoretical physics

DAY 3: SYSTEMATICS AND DATA ANALYSIS
3A: Massive black-hole binaries: modeling and systematics
3B: Extreme mass-ratio inspirals: modeling and environmental systematics
3C: Data-analysis tools and strategies

## INVITED PANEL SPEAKERS ##
A. Arvanitaki
S. Babak
E. Berti
D. Blas
R. Brito
A. Buonanno *
C. Burrage
C. Caprini
V. Cardoso
K. Chatziioannou
N. Cornish
J. de Boer
P. Ferreira
J. Gair *
S. Giddings
T. Hinderer
S. Hughes
L. Hui
A. Klein
B. Kocsis
C. Palenzuela
A. Raccannelli
T. Sotiriou
L. Stein *
A. Tolley
M. Trodden
M. Van den Meent
M. Vallisneri
A. Vecchio
F. Vernizzi
F. Vidotto
H. Witek
K. Yagi
A. Zimmerman

(* to be confirmed)

######################

Organizers:
Enrico Barausse (Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris),
Thomas Hertog (KU Leuven),
Philippe Jetzer (University of Zurich),
Paolo Pani (Sapienza University of Rome),
Nicolas Yunes (Montana State University)

Support:
– European Research Council Starting Grant DarkGRA-757480 (“Unveiling the dark universe with gravitational waves”).
– COST Action CA16104 “Gravitational waves, black holes and fundamental physics” (GWverse)

Workshop poster (courtesy of Michele Monasta, http://www.michelemonasta.it):

high-res: https://www.dropbox.com/s/de8lxpokwjom6lp/nov_2018.pdf?dl=0
low-res: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ekdpzg6u87gys7c/poster_low_res.pdf?dl=0

COST GWverse: Exchange of researchers working on gravitational-wave and black hole physics

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In the context of the European COST Action CA16104 on Gravitational waves, black holes and fundamental physics (GWverse), grants for short term scientific missions (STSMs) are available. We are inviting you to submit proposals for STMSs starting after May 1, 2018 and ending before Nov 30, 2018 (applications outside this timeframe will be discarded).

This call starts on Feb 15 and closes Mar 30, 2018. All proposals will be reviewed and the results will be announced by Apr 15, 2018.

The selection committee will take into account the geographical distribution of host and home institution, matching of funds by the host, the scientific proposal and the experience of the applicant (preference is given to Early Career Investigators).

Successful applicants will be expected to join as members of one (or more) of the Action’s Working Groups. STSM recipients should acknowledge the COST Action in any publication or talks, through the use of the COST logo and the statement “The authors would like to acknowledge networking support by the COST Action GWverse CA16104”.

STSMs are a great opportunity for all scientists within the COST Action to exchange visits, nurture collaborations, or develop new ones. Further details are available at the GWverse webpage: https://gwverse.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/stsms/
If you have any question, please contact the STSM Coordinator Andreja Gomboc: andreja.gomboc[at]ung.si

GEMMA (Gravitational-waves, ElectroMagnetic and dark MAtter) Physics Workshop, Lecce, Italy

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Dear colleagues,

it is a pleasure to announce the GEMMA (Gravitational-waves, ElectroMagnetic and dark MAtter) Physics Workshop to be held in Lecce (Italy) from June 4th to June 7th, 2018.

The aim of the GEMMA workshop is to discuss about gravitational waves, multimessenger astrophysics and dark matter physics at this especially exciting times, bringing together the experimental, theoretical and data analysis aspects of these apparently heterogeneous fields.

Registration is now open and Abstract Submission is welcome on these topics. Please find further information at http://www.roma1.infn.it/conference/GEMMA/index.html.

The workshop is organised in days focused around key topics introduced by invited speakers and followed by contributed talks. There will also be a poster session, together with four Young Scientist GEMMA Awards to the best poster contributions by skilled young researchers.

The scientific program will be finalised in the upcoming days.

The deadline for abstract submission is March 15th, 2018 and the deadline for early registration is February 28th, 2018.

The LOC and the SOC are looking forward to welcoming you in Lecce.

Best Regards,

Paola Leaci on behalf of the SOC and LOC

COST GWverse: Exchange of researchers working on gravitational-wave and black hole physics

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In the context of the European COST Action CA16104 on Gravitational waves, black holes and fundamental physics (GWverse), grants for short term scientific missions (STSMs) are available. We are inviting you to submit proposals for STMSs starting after Nov 1, 2017 and before April 30, 2018 (applications outside this timeframe will be discarded).

This call starts on Sep 1 and closes Oct 15, 2017. All proposals will be reviewed and the results will be announced by Nov 1, 2017.

STSMs are a great opportunity for all scientists within the COST Action to exchange visits, nurture collaborations, or develop new ones. Further details are available at the GWverse webpage: https://gwverse.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/stsms/
If you have any question, please contact the STSM Coordinator Andreja Gomboc: andreja.gomboc[at]ung.si

Observing Black Holes: From the Universe to the Lab, London UK

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IOP Gravitational Physics Group September Meeting
“Observing Black Holes: From the Universe to the Lab”

Friday, 15 September 2017, 12:00 – 17:00
Ayrton and Franklin Rooms, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT, UK

This half-day meeting of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group is focused on recent observational developments of black holes. The meeting will be comprised of three speakers discussing the following topics:

Gravitational Wave Observations – John Veitch (University of Glasgow)
Imaging a Supermassive Black Hole – Jason Dexter (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)
Observation of Superradiance in a Vortex Flow – Silke Weinfurtner (University of Nottingham)

All are welcome to attend and no registration fee will be charged. The talks will be preceded by the IOP Gravitational Physics Group annual general meeting.

Schedule
12:00: Annual General Meeting for members of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group
13:30-14:30 – John Veitch
14:30-15:30 – Jason Dexter
16:00-17:00 – Silke Weinfurtner

Registration
https://www.iopconferences.org/iop/1129/home

Signed
The IOP Gravitational Physics Group Committee
gp.iop.org

Observing Black Holes: From the Universe to the lab, London, UK

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“Observing Black Holes: From the Universe to the lab”

This half-day meeting of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group is focused on recent observational developments of black holes. The meeting will be comprised of three speakers who will discuss the following topics:

Gravitational Wave Observations – John Veitch (University of Glasgow)
Imaging a Supermassive Black Hole – Jason Dexter (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)
Observation of Superradiance in a Vortex Flow – Silke Weinfurtner (University of Nottingham)

All are welcome to attend and no registration fee will be charged. The talks will be preceded by the IOP Gravitational Physics Group annual general meeting

Signed

The IOP Gravitational Physics Group Committee

New code: EFTofPNG (version 1.0)

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EFTofPNG is a public Mathematica code for high precision Feynman computation in the Effective Field Theory of Post-Newtonian Gravity. The code covers the current state of the art PN accuracy including spinning components in the merging compact binaries. Its final unit computes observables useful for the waveform modelling, and serves as a pipeline chain for the wave templates.

This package was created in view of the timely need to publicly share automated computation tools, which integrate the various types of physics manifested in the expected increasing influx of gravitational waves data.

The code is available as a public repository in GitHub.

We aimed for a code accessible to the classical Gravity community, yet of possible use to the broader community.

New code: EFTofPNG (version 1.0)

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EFTofPNG is a public Mathematica code for high precision Feynman computation in the Effective Field Theory of Post-Newtonian Gravity. The code covers the current state of the art PN accuracy including spinning components in the merging compact binaries. Its final unit computes observables useful for the waveform modelling, and serves as a pipeline chain for the wave templates.

This package was created in view of the timely need to publicly share automated computation tools, which integrate the various types of physics manifested in the expected increasing influx of gravitational waves data.

The code is available as a public repository in GitHub.

We aimed for a code accessible to the classical Gravity community, yet of possible use to the broader community.

Exchange of researchers working on gravitational-wave and black hole physics

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In the context of the European COST Action CA16104 on Gravitational waves, black holes and fundamental physics, grants for short term scientific missions (STSMs) are available. We are inviting you to submit proposals for STMSs starting after July 1 and before November 30, 2017. Applications outside this timeframe will be discarded (a second call will open in September).

This call starts on May 15 and closes June 15, 2017. All proposals will be reviewed and the results will be announced by July 1, 2017.

Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) are a great opportunity for all scientists within the COST Action to exchange visits, nurture collaborations, or develop new ones. The COST association defines the STSM as exchange visits between researchers involved in a COST Action, allowing scientists to visit an institution or laboratory in another COST country.

Participants from a participating COST Country or Cooperative State can be hosted at institution in:
– another participating COST Country or Cooperative State,
– another participating COST Country or Cooperative State,
– an approved NNC (Near Neighbour Country) institution,
– an approved IPC (International Partner Country), or
– an approved Specific organization.

Participants from an approved NNC (Near Neighbour Country) institution or an approved European RTD Organization can only be hosted at another participating COST Country or cooperative state.

A European RTD Organisation is any intergovernmental scientific research organisation that is responsible for infrastructures and laboratories whose members are countries, and the majority of which are COST Member Countries or Cooperating State.

STSMs are aimed at fostering collaboration, sharing new techniques and infrastructure that may not be available in other participants’ institutions or laboratories. STSMs are of two types (more on STSM types can be found at: https://gwverse.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/stsms/stsm-types/) and are intended especially for young researchers.

The details of the application procedure can be found at:
https://gwverse.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/stsms/how-to-apply/

For queries, contact the STSM coordinator Andreja Gomboc, andreja.gomboc[at]ung.si

New Frontiers in Gravitational-Wave Astrophysics, Rome, Italy

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The exciting discovery of GW150914 has opened a new era for physics and astrophysics, which is rich of opportunities and challenges. New questions appear, and old questions are posed with renovated strength. This workshop brings together leading experts in gravitational-wave astrophysics, with the aim of discussing new frontiers in this exponentially-growing field, such as formation of black-hole binaries, multiwavelength and multimessenger astronomy, tests of gravity, neutron-star modelling, and equation-of-state extraction from gravitational-wave signals.

There will be few talks per day, three round tables, and plenty of time for discussions. The main themes to be discussed (one per day) are:

– GWs after the first detections
– GWs and neutron-star modelling
– Fundamental physics with GWs
– From ground to space

List of confirmed invited speakers and round-table organizers:

Stanislav Babak (AEI, Germany)
Enrico Barausse (IAP, France)
Andreas Bauswein (HITS, Germany)
Sebastiano Bernuzzi (Parma U., Italy)
Chris Berry (Birmingham U., UK)
Emanuele Berti (Mississippi U., USA)
Vitor Cardoso (IST, Portugal)
Massimo Dotti (Milan U., Italy)
Tania Hinderer (AEI, Germany)
Antoine Klein (IAP, France)
Kostas Kokkotas (Tubingen U., Germany)
Michela Mapelli (Padova U., Italy)
Rosalba Perna (Stony Brook, USA)
Raffaella Schneider (Sapienza U., Italy)
Alberto Sesana (Birmingham U., UK)
Thomas Sotiriou (Nottingham U., UK)
Leo Stein (Caltech, USA)
Alberto Vecchio (Birmingham, UK)
Kent Yagi (Princeton, USA)
Nico Yunes (Montana U., USA)

Since the number of participants is limited, we suggest to register at your earliest convenience.

Looking forward to seeing you in Rome,

Valeria Ferrari, Leonardo Gualtieri, Paolo Pani

Gravitational waves, Poland, Warsaw

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The conference on gravitational waves – mathematical, computational, astrophysical and quantum approaches. The conference will take place from the 9th (arrival day) to the 11th of December 2016 at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.

Invited Speakers: Iwo Bialynicki-Birula, Piotr Chrusciel, Joerg Frauendiener, Helmut Friedrich, Petr Horava, Piotr Jaranowski, Jerzy Kijowski, Andrzej Krolak, Igor Novikov, Pawel Nurowski, Roger Penrose, Uwe Semmelmann, Paul Tod, Andrzej Trautman.

The Next Detectors for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, 5-week workshop, KITPC, Beijing

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The first detection of gravitational waves by ground-based detectors in the 10Hz – 10 kHz frequency band is expected after advanced gravitational wave detectors now being installed and commissioned reach their full sensitivity, between 2016-2020. Signals from the known population of binary neutron stars are expected, as well as signals from other sources such as binary black holes. In addition to ground-based detectors, space based detectors for the millihertz band are under active development, pulsar timing observatories are searching for gravitational waves in the nanohertz band, and studies of the cosmic microwave background are searching for evidence for gravitational waves at ~10-16 Hz. The need for an expanded array of ground-based detectors is well understood. Expansion of the array and particularly the addition of a southern hemisphere detector will greatly improve angular resolution, array duty cycle, source galaxy identification, and source parameter estimation. The expanded array should be designed to maximise the science outcomes of gravitational wave astronomy in regard to both the fundamental testing of general relativity and astrophysical observations.

New approaches and new technologies for ground based gravitational wave detectors have been under development for a number of years. Proposed designs for future detectors were considered by the Einstein Telescope collaboration and by LIGO Scientific Collaboration “colour groups” in 2010-2012.

This KITPC Program will bring leading experts in gravitational wave astrophysics, gravitational wave detector science and engineering, quantum opto-mechanics, precision optics, fine mechanics and materials science together in a 5 week program focused on designing the next ground based detectors, and special sessions and workshops on the optimum design for space based detectors.

Future detector designs depend crucially on key enabling technologies in which there has been intense theoretical and experimental research over recent years. These include

– theory of acoustic noise and development of optical materials that combine ultralow acoustic noise and optical losses,
– theory and technology for Newtonian gravitational noise reduction,
– theory and implementation of macroscopic quantum measurement techniques.

Considerations for evaluating different detector arrays include: a) knowledge and modelling of signal sources; b) modelling of detector array performance in relation to source parameter extraction and signal to noise ratio; c) methods of data analysis; d) capabilities and performance of multi-messenger astronomy techniques.

Finally, design choices for the next ground based detectors will depend on practical considerations that include the time scale for achieving performance requirements, understanding of the risks associated with design choices, and cost trade-offs versus funding opportunities.

Week 1 will focus on the entire gravitational wave spectrum including regions targeted by pulsar timing, space laser interferometers, atom interferometers and ground based detectors. It will review the current knowledge of sources, detectors and data analysis, and identify critical areas of research in the physics of sources, gravitational wave detector science and multimessenger astronomy.

Week 2 will include the Third Beijing Workshop on Gravitational Waves (held at Tsinghua University, Beijing). The program of this workshop is centered on the following themes:

– Detection of gravitational waves: instruments, signal analysis, data analysis,…
– Gravitational wave sources: neutron star binaries, black hole binaries,…
– Multi-messenger astrophysics: optical, X-ray, or gamma ray counterparts, neutrinos,…
– Other gravitational-wave related themes (supporting computing architecture,…)

Weeks 3-4 will explore the possibilities for realistic designs for the next ground based detectors, plus workshop to explore space detector designs and their synergy with ground based detectors. Sessions will include:

– Quantum measurement technologies based on optical squeezing and optical spring effects;
– Core technologies including laser wavelength, test mass material, optical coatings, detector configurations, vacuum and cryogenics, and control systems.
– Broadening the sensitivity bandwidth (<10Hz, >3kHz) and multimessenger astronomy.
– Interferometer arm length: vacuum and cost/sensitivity trade-offs. Space detector workshop topics will include:
– Technology: high-power space qualified lasers, ultra-stable oscillators, pointing, sensors, UV discharging, time delay interferometry.
– Mission design: layout, armlength, orbit.
– Sources, data analysis and multimessenger astronomy: galaxy and black hole evolution, optical counterparts, EMRI templates, TeV signatures and dark energy.

Week 5 will focus on the programme outcomes: completion of the science case and conceptual design for the next ground based detectors. Publication: The outcomes will be published as a special issue of a refereed journal containing a single multi-authored design paper on the next ground based detector, a multi-authored review on space detectors and short individual contributions. Week 5 will also organize an international conference on gravitation and cosmology jointed with the 4th Galileo-Xu Guangxi meeting, to celebrate GR 100

About 50 international participants and 100 participants from China are expected to attend the KITP Program, which will take place on the Campus of the CAS-KITP in Beijing. The program will include formal presentations, workshops and informal working groups along the lines of Aspen workshops. The draft program below will be modified according to advice from the IAC and Coordinating Committee and availability of participants. Funding details for participants will be given in the second announcement.

International Organizing Committee
David Blair, Junwei Cao, Zhoujian Cao, Yanbei Chen, Yun-song Piao, Wen Zhao, Zong-Hong Zhu

Towards gravitational wave astronomy: data analysis techniques and challenges, London

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The next few years promise to be exciting ones for the field of gravitational wave astronomy: ground-based gravitational wave detectors will begin taking data at unprecedented sensitivities; pulsar timing arrays are continuing to improve their timing accuracy; and several experiments are studying the cosmic microwave background polarisation in great detail. Together, these methods are probing a huge range of the gravitational wave spectrum, and detections will offer a wealth of new information on compact binaries, supermassive black holes, and general relativity in extreme environments from the early universe to black hole mergers.
Exploiting the datasets provided by these cutting edge observations has spurred the development of novel data analysis methods to understand gravitational wave sources.

This Royal Astronomical Society discussion meeting will bring together researchers from these diverse areas to encourage the sharing of techniques and foster further collaboration within the data analysis community.