Speaker
Description
The gravitational-wave window onto the Universe has been opened with the first detection of a binary black hole in 2015. Since then, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration has published 90 probable detections from three complete observing runs of the advanced-generation laser-interferometric detectors. These have enabled many new insights into the astrophysics of compact objects and the evolutionary history of massive stars, and are a completely novel probe for cosmology and fundamental physics. Since May 2023, the fourth observing run is ongoing, planned to last for 20 calendar months. It provides the deepest yet reach into our Universe's population of merging compact objects, with public alerts sent out in low latency to enable multi-messenger astronomy. We could also, for the first time, be able to detect a large variety of other sources such as spinning neutron stars or supernovae. Further, gravitational waves can probe many exciting channels for physics beyond the Standard Model.
