Gravitational waves after the first detection: perspectives for fundamental physics and astrophysics

by Prof. Valeria Ferrari (Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Universita' di Roma)

Tuesday 15 Mar 2016, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G.Marconi)

The first detection of a gravitational wave signal emitted by coalescing black holes introduces an entirely new instrument to observe and investigate the universe we live in . Being very weakly interacting with matter, these waves will allow us to gain information on processes and sources very far from us, or too weak in the electromagnetic waveband, challenging or confirming, our beliefs on several crucial issues: how do gravitating structures evolve to form compact objects which eventually produce binary coalescence, how gravity behaves in the strong field regime, as near a black hole horizon, how matter behaves at the supranuclear densities which are typical of the inner core of neutron stars. These and other issues, will be illustrated and discussed.