Gravitational-Wave Research Seminar

The first detections by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) of the signals from binary black hole mergers in September and December 2015 are a fantastic achievement. They herald a new era of study of the universe, when the unique contributions from gravitational-wave astrophysics will provide novel understanding.

In this talk I will highlight some of the main tools and methods for the extraction of scientific knowledge from gravitational-wave observations. The focus will be on the extraction of parameters from the coalescence of black holes and neutron stars, with an illustration of some of the great potential of the field by inferring the properties of the cataclysmic event that created the signals LIGO detected.