Speaker
Prof.
Szabolcs Marka
(Columbia University)
Description
The discovery of gravitational waves and their
multimessenger fingerprint has opened tremendous opportunities for
astrophysics. Extraordinary instrumental breakthroughs in
gravitational-wave detectors on Earth and in Space, in electromagnetic
and in neutrino observatories shall lead to an information explosion
during the coming years and decades, rapidly expanding humanity’s cosmic
and scientific horizon. Multisensory observations of gravitational-wave
sources promises opportunities that are complementary to insights gained
through traditional means. After decades of focused efforts, the
observation of an electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational-wave
event GW170817 by a multitude of instruments highlighted the value of
multimessenger astrophysics and indicated that short gamma-ray bursts
(GRB) could arise from mergers of pairs of neutron stars, and, more
generally, that binary mergers are capable of accelerating particles and
producing high-energy emission. Comprehensive Multisensory Multimodal
Integration in gravitationa-wave Astrophysics is happening at an
accelerated scale promising a bright future and shall bring new
opportunities for LIGO, Virgo, Kagra and LISA.