‘Indian scientists continue to make important contributions towards this new frontier in astronomy’

Since the first direct gravitational-wave (GW) observation by LIGO in 2015, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017, GW Science has seen extensive and rapid advances. In the backdrop of the recent major discovery of a new source of gravitational waves (Neutron Star and Black Hole merger), a webinar was organised on Friday to focus on India’s contributions to the various aspects of GW science.

The webinar organised by LIGO-India, ‘Recent milestones in Gravitational-wave astronomy’, had key experts from various scientific institutions making presentations. “Due to advanced techniques and a global network of GW detectors, we are now at a point where we are observing two GW candidates every week. Indian scientists have made, and continue to make, important contributions towards this new frontier in astronomy,” Prof Somak Raychaudhury, director of IUCAA, told media persons during the webinar.

In her presentation, Dr Anupreeta More from IUCAA said that on May 13 this year, the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra collaboration of GW detectors announced the results of the search for lensing of GWs, bending of GWs by gravity itself.

“So far, there have been no promising lens candidates (which is consistent with our expectations), but even the absence of detectable lensing effects has already improved our knowledge of the compact binary merger rate in the distant universe,” said Dr More.