Gravitational Waves Chronicles: Highlights from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration

• Lorenzo Piccari

The first detection of a gravitational-wave signal emitted by a compact binary coalescence was made by LIGO detectors on September 14, 2015. The event, associated with a binary black hole merger, ushered the era of GW astronomy, offering a new way to probe our Universe. Since then the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration uncovered more than 100 additional GW signals. These are all generated by compact binary coalescence sources, mostly BBHs, with a handful compatible with the presence of at least one neutron star in the binary. In this talk, I will provide an introduction to gravitational waves and their sources, followed by an overview of the relevant observational results obtained by the LVK collaboration.

Dicussion

The Dark Side of the Universe: Hunting Dark Matter Particles with Liquid Noble Gas Detectors

• Paolo Salomone

Until about thirty years ago, astronomers believed the universe was composed almost entirely of ordinary atoms. Recent evidence, however, suggests the presence of dark matter—a mysterious substance that exerts gravitational pull without emitting or absorbing light. WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are leading candidates for this dark matter. In this talk, I will introduce the direct detection mechanism for WIMPs using Liquid Noble Gas Detectors and share insights from my research with the DarkSide-20k experiment, aiming to uncover the nature of this elusive matter.

Discussion