Cardiff will see the world’s biggest assembly of scientists who hunt for gravitational waves when they come to attend the joint Edoardo Amaldi Conference and the Numerical Relativity – Data Analysis (NRDA) meeting next week (July 10-15), hosted by Cardiff University.
This is the first time either of these conferences is being held in the United Kingdom.
Einstein’s theory of gravity predicts that gravitational waves – minute ripples in the fabric of spacetime – should emanate from catastrophic cosmic events such as merging black holes, collapsing stars and supernovae.
The first generation of interferometric detectors, GEO600, LIGO, Virgo and TAMA, have successfully demonstrated the proof-of-principle and constrained gravitational waves from several sources.
The next generation of detectors GEO-HF, Advanced LIGO, LCGT and Advanced Virgo, currently under construction, should make the first direct detection of gravitational waves – for example, from a pair of orbiting black holes or neutron stars spiralling into each other – heralding the new field of Gravitational Astronomy.
Dr Patrick Sutton, chair of the conference organising committee from Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said, “We are delighted to be hosting this event, which is attracting some of the top physicists and astronomers in the world to Cardiff. It is a testimony to the world-leading role Cardiff University plays in this exciting new area.”
The biennial Amaldi meetings, sponsored by the Gravitational Wave International Committee (GWIC, a sub-committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics), cover all aspects of gravitational-wave science: current and future detectors, data analysis, gravitational-wave sources, and the physics, astrophysics and cosmology one hopes to learn from gravitational astronomy.
Professor James Hough, the chair of GWIC, said, “Cardiff is a very appropriate location for these meetings as so much of the theoretical research on sources and potential for gravitational wave astronomy has been carried out here by Sathyaprakash, Bernard Schutz and their colleagues.”
The NRDA meetings bring together numerical relativists who simulate sources of gravitational radiation, and data analysts who search for these signals in gravitational wave detector data. This is the fourth NRDA meeting; the previous meetings were held in Waterloo (2010), Potsdam (2009), and Syracuse (2008).
Dr Mark Hannam from Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy’s Gravitational Physics Group (and a founding member of the NRDA collaboration) said, “Numerical relativity is the only way to solve Einstein’s equations to describe the collisions of black holes or neutron stars. We need to do this for thousands of different cases before the advanced detectors come online, and we have only a few years left. So these meetings are our chance to work out with the data analysts how to do it.”
Dr Stephen Fairhurst, Royal Society University Fellow at Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy and another founding member of the NRDA collaboration, said: “Black hole mergers are one of the most energetic processes in the universe, and one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves. Knowledge of the expected gravitational wave signal will greatly enhance our ability to find these systems.”
A number of public talks are also being held as part of the conference. Details below.
Public/Outreach talks:
On the occasion of the Amaldi and NRDA meetings there will be three public talks involving leading Cardiff University academics.
On Monday July 11, Professor Harry Collins, Cardiff University, will speak on:
What does a sociologist see when he looks at science
On Tuesday July 12, there will be an outreach talk on Professor Matt Griffin, Cardiff University, will speak on:
The Herschel and Planck missions: Exploring the History of the Universe
On Wednesday July 13, there will be an outreach talk by Professor Bernard Schutz, Cardiff University and Director, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, on:
Gravitational Waves: Listening to the True Music of the Spheres!
