When: Friday, December 15, 2023, 2:30 PM - 3:30 PMWhere: G.O. Jones room 610 & online
Speaker: Alberto Vecchio (Birmingham)
Observing (ultra-)low frequency gravitational waves
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) provide a means to synthesise a galactic-scale gravitational wave detector sensitive to radiation at ultra-low (nano-Hz) frequencies. Several PTA collaborations have recently reported tantalising evidence for a gravitational-wave stochastic background in their most recent data sets. In this talk, I will discuss the results that we have obtained within the European PTA, and put them in the context of those reported by other collaborations. I will discuss some of the implications of these observations concerning populations of massive black hole binary systems, and possibly more exotic processes in the early Universe. I will also discus the implications for future gravitational-wave observations in the mHz regime with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a space-based observatory which is expected to be “adopted” by ESA early next year.