Universe and cosmology Gravity, relativity and spacetime
Astrophysics with gravitational waves: a new window on the universe
Antonio de Ugarte Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia
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About the lecture
In 2015, after decades of fruitless work, gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes were detected for the first time, confirming the predictions made by Albert Einstein a hundred years earlier. In 2017 a new milestone was reached with the simultaneous observation of gravitational and electromagnetic waves from the same event, in this case the merger of two neutron stars, opening a new era in the study of the universe.
In this talk I will review both the instrumental developments needed to detect gravitational waves and the discoveries we are making thanks to their use in astrophysics. I will stress the benefits of combining electromagnetic and gravitational observations to obtain a much more complete picture of some of the most extreme phenomena in the universe. Finally, I will present what we expect the future of gravitational-wave studies to be in the coming decades.
Text of the official description published by IAA-CSIC on YouTube.
