TAP Colloquium: Gravitational Wave Astronomy - The first decade and the next

Abstract: It is now almost a decade since the LIGO observatory first detected gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes. Since then, the LIGO and Virgo instruments have detected hundreds of additional signals, include the spectacular binary neutron star merger GW170817, and several mixed black hole - neutron star binaries. These discoveries have lead to new insights into stellar evolution, constraints on the nuclear equation of state, and precision tests of general relativity in the strong field regime. This summer, multiple pulsar timing teams from around the world presented evidence for a very low frequency gravitational wave stochastic background. In this talk I will described highlights from the first decade of gravitational wave astronomy, and look forward to what we hope to explore in the next decade and beyond, including the prospects for the space based Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, scheduled for launch next decade.

Bio: Neil Cornish grew up on a sheep station in the Australian bush where days spent tinkering with farm machinery and nights spent under a vast canopy of stars started him on a journey to discover what makes the Universe tick. Following undergraduate studies at the University of Melbourne and a PhD at the University of Toronto, he held postdoctoral appointments with Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge, and David Spergel at Princeton University. Neil is now Regents Professor of Physics at Montana State University, director of the eXtreme Gravity Institute http://www.montana.edu/xgi/ and a fellow of the American Physical Society. His group contributed to the first detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO collaboration in 2015, and to the first detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background by the NANOGrav collaboration in 2023. Neil is a member of the NASA science team for the future LISA space based gravitational wave detector, and is looking forward to being part of the first detection of gravitational waves in the milli-Hz frequency band some time next decade.