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Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

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Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#101
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one (negative!) result on trying to detect dark matter with LIGO: https://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-O3DarkPhotons/

I thought LIGO is kind of crude, i.e. it's being used to measure in the scale of blackhole level gravity. The dark matter experiment is trying to measure the gravity of a photon? May be too optimistic?

Sounds like they're looking for dark photons interacting with the detector, and, thanks to its extreme sensitivity, able to place upper bounds on the strength of the interactions (since none were observed). This means dark photons have very very weak interactions with normal matter.... or that they don't exist. :)

Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#102

Could we be seeing warp drive signatures?

So far all of the signals observed by LIGO are from sources that we expected would exist. The most exciting thing would be to observe an unexpected signal.

Wikipedia lists S200114f (on page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravitational_wave_o...) in a way that to me makes it sound like there’s substantial uncertainty about the cause of it; is that maybe because Wikipedia is out of date and people figured out the (not unusual) cause since, or is maybe just wrong, or maybe I misunderstand what you mean, or I misunderstood what the people who labeled the entry for it on Wikipedia meant?

Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope to live long enough to see the evolution of interferometers that will be to LIGO as HST was to Galileo's telescope.

This is what you're waiting for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...

> Launch date: 2037 (planned)

It hurts.

Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#105

question: according to Wikipedia, LIGO was built between 1994-2002, and didn't detect gravitational waves until 2016. I never heard about LIGO until the discovery in 2016, so for almost 20 years it was off my radar, so to speak. What multi-decade experiments are being created today, which will be ready to produce amazing results in 20-30 years? What's currently under construction, but I'll never hear about it until 2…

According to another commenter, LISA will be the successor to LIGO's line of gravitational-wave astronomy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...

Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#106
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in a library and we all had a similar feeling about books. They were all valuable and to be preserved! Objectively, that's not practical. But that base irrational feeling is still useful and important.

Technically we've missed at least four billion years of gravitational wave events, so a week of shutdown for an upgrade isn't going to make a huge difference to that.

My crude searching tells me there are ~3 supernovas in our galaxy every century. Miss one now and the next might wait for the next generation of astrophysicist.

Re: Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

#108
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what you're waiting for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...

> Launch date: 2037 (planned) It hurts.

assume it takes an extra 10 years due to delays and time to get some science done, I should just about make it.
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