Physics · 2016
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
B. P. Abbott, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)
Overview
The first direct detection of gravitational waves, a century after Einstein predicted them. On 14 September 2015 the two LIGO detectors recorded the spacetime ripple (event GW150914) from two black holes spiralling together and merging over a billion light-years away.
Opened gravitational-wave astronomy and earned the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Key findings
Methods
Laser interferometry: two 4-km L-shaped interferometers in Hanford and Livingston measured sub-proton-scale changes in arm length, with matched-filter analysis against general-relativity waveform templates and coincidence between sites to reject noise.
Keywords
Related papers
Physics
On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox
Bell turned the EPR debate from philosophy into experiment. He proved that any theory based on local hidden variables must obey an inequality that quantum mechanics violates — making the question of non-locality empirically decidable.
Physics
Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons
Higgs showed how gauge bosons — the carriers of fundamental forces — can acquire mass through spontaneous symmetry breaking without spoiling the underlying gauge symmetry. The mechanism predicts a new scalar field and its associated particle.
Physics
Theory of Superconductivity
The BCS theory gave the first microscopic explanation of superconductivity. It showed that below a critical temperature electrons bind into 'Cooper pairs' via lattice vibrations and condense into a single coherent quantum state that carries current without resistance.