The existence of gravitational waves is not in doubt, although they have yet to be directly detected. Now, with a network of second-generation detectors set to come online, that may soon change. Two US-based detectors that make up the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) begin their first data run this month; Advanced VIRGO in Italy will start up next year; and detectors in Japan and India are poised to follow within a few years.
Gravitational waves manifest as the stretching and scrunching of spacetime. Cataclysmic cosmic events that involve large masses, such as exploding stars or merging neutron stars, “cause disturbances in spacetime,” says Sheila Rowan, director of the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow and a member of the Advanced LIGO team. (See the interview with Rowan in the Singularities department of Physics Today’s online Daily Edition.) “It’s a very compelling scientific thing to want to sense these signals.”
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