PIRSA ID: https://pirsa.org/26030081
Series: Strong Gravity
Event Type: Seminar
Scientific Area(s): Strong Gravity
Speaker(s): Neil Lu Australia National University
Event Link: https://events.perimeterinstitute.ca/e/2200
| The detection of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers enables us to observe the behavior of spacetimes in the strong-field, highly dynamical regime. The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA collaboration has now observed hundreds of such events, offering several exciting candidates with differing properties. In this talk I will discuss recent results using these gravitational wave observations to test general relativity and probe the spacetime near black holes. I will present the first confident detection of an overtone in the ringdown signal during the postmerger phase of the binary black hole signal. I will also discuss the “direct wave” signal, a recently proposed model for the merger portion of the waveform that depends on the physics close to the black hole horizon. Finally, I will present the first results from applying this model to real data, using it to analyze the loudest gravitational wave event ever detected. |