The Final Dance of Mixed Neutron Star-Black Hole Pairs: A New Type of Cataclysmic Event in the Cosmos
Gravitational wave detectors have observed a new type of cataclysmic event in the cosmos: the merger of a neutron star with a black hole. The…
LIGO News
Active Laser-Cooling of LIGO’s Mirrors to Near Quantum Ground State
Using LIGO’s suspended mirrors, researchers have demonstrated the ability to cool a large-scale object — the 10-kilogram optomechanical oscillator the suspended mirrors form — to…
Hawking’s Black Hole Theorem Confirmed Observationally for the First Time
Study offers evidence, based on gravitational waves, to show that the total area of a black hole’s event horizon can never decrease. There are certain…
A New Type of Cataclysmic Event in the Cosmos: Astrophysicists Detect First Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers
Mix pair is “elusive missing piece of the family picture of compact object mergers.” A long time ago, in two galaxies about 900 million light-years…
In Extraordinary Experiment, Physicists Bring Human-Scale Object to Near Standstill, Reaching a Quantum State
The results open possibilities for studying gravity’s effects on relatively large objects in quantum states. To the human eye, most stationary objects appear to be…
Black Hole Spin Discovery Could Shed Light on General Relativity and the Lifespan of Stars
One of the key goals of gravitational wave astronomy is to understand and characterize binary black hole spins, according to Vijay Varma, a Klarman Postdoctoral…
Deep Space Listening: 6000 Days of Research to Hear Continuous Gravitational Waves
Remember the days before working from home? It’s Monday morning, you’re running late to beat the traffic, and you can’t find your car keys. What…
Ultralight Bosons: Fast-Spinning Black Holes Narrow the Search for Dark Matter Particles
Certain ultralight bosons would be expected to put the brakes on black holes, but new results show no such slowdown. Ultralight bosons are hypothetical particles…
Clues to Missing Components of the Universe From Ripples in Space-Time
University of Chicago scientist lays out how LIGO gravitational waves could be scrambled, yielding information. There’s something a little off about our theory of the…
Sifting Out Gravitational Waves From Just After the Big Bang to Understand the Conditions of the Early Universe
Identifying primordial ripples would be key to understanding the conditions of the early universe. In the moments immediately following the Big Bang, the very first…
Massive Overcontact Binary Stars May Explain Massive Black Hole Merger Puzzle
In 2015, the first direct observation of gravitational waves was made by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (aLIGO) (Abbott et al. 2016). The detected…
Wealth of Discoveries From Gravitational-Wave Data Leads to Most Detailed Black Hole “Family Portrait”
New analysis of gravitational-wave data leads to wealth of discoveries. An international research collaboration including Northwestern University astronomers has produced the most detailed family portrait…
Tracing Ripples in the Fabric of Spacetime to Reveal the Origins of Merging Black Holes
Over the past five years, astronomy has been revolutionized as scientists have used ripples in the fabric of spacetime, called gravitational waves, to reveal the…
Characterization of Systematic Error in Advanced LIGO Calibration
The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) detectors and the Virgo detector have directly observed transient gravitational waves (GWs) from compact binary coalescences. After…
Unique “Bang” in Simulations Created by Unequal Neutron-Star Mergers
When two neutron stars slam together, the result is sometimes a black hole that swallows all but the gravitational evidence of the collision. However, in…
Researchers Find the Origin and Maximum Mass of Massive Black Holes Observed by Gravitational Wave Detectors
Through simulations of a dying star, a team of theoretical physics researchers have found the evolutionary origin and the maximum mass of black holes which…
Monumental Collision of “Impossible” Black Holes Detected for the First Time
The most massive black hole collision ever detected has been directly observed by the LIGO and VIRGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes scientists from The Australian National University (ANU). The…
Lopsided “David and Goliath” Black Hole Merger With an Oddball Origin Story
Researchers suggest a novel process to explain the collision of a large black hole and a much smaller one. A lopsided merger of two black…