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Northwestern Leads Effort to Detect New Types of Cosmic Events

“A team of physicists and astronomers from Northwestern University is poised to lead gravitational-wave astronomy into its next evolution. The W. M. Keck Foundation has awarded $1 million, which will be used to develop a prototype for a new kind of gravitational-wave detector that is small enough to fit on a tabletop and powerful enough to detect cosmic events that existing astronomical equipment cannot.

“This is the start of the next phase of gravitational-wave and multi-messenger astronomy,” said Andrew Geraci, principal investigator on the project. “This tabletop sensor will be able to observe events we’ve never seen before, expanding our understanding of space and the universe.”

Geraci is an associate professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty member of the Center for Fundamental Physics (CFP) and the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research for Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern.

The Levitated Sensor Detector will extend the spectrum of detectable gravitational waves to higher frequencies, possibly opening a window to the types of events that are related to the mysterious dark matter in the universe. It will complement research being conducted at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo observatories, which occupy several acres of land in the United States and Italy, by observing smaller cosmic events that produce waves at a frequency LIGO and Virgo cannot detect.

“If you think of gravitational waves like sound waves, the frequency we are trying to capture with levitated sensors is sort of like a dog whistle,” said Vicky Kalogera, project co-investigator and CIERA director….”

Read the full article, by Kayla Stoner, in the Northwestern News.

 

Round Up of Media Mentions of CIERA/Northwestern