PHY 3101 - Modern Physics - Fall 2019

Cosmology Material

Prof. Imre Bartos guest lecture (Dec. 2, 2019)

• Astrophysics with Gravitational Wave Observations (PDF)
• Astrophysics with Gravitational Wave Observations (Powerpoint)

Gravitational wave experiments

• LIGO GW experiment: LIGO made the first observation of gravitational waves in 2015. LIGO is optimized to work in the 50 - 1000 Hz frequency band.
• VIRGO GW experiment: The VIRGO detector is located near Pisa, Italy. It is optimized to work in a GW frequency band similar to LIGO. VIRGO-LIGO coordinate closely and recently jointly announced the detection of four BH-BH mergers.
• LISA space-based GW experiment. LISA is composed of three detectors revolving around the sun in a fixed triangular orientation. It is designed to detect very low frequency (0.1 mHz - 1 Hz) GW signals
• International Pulsar Timing Array: IPTA analyzes pulse-arrival data from a few dozen millisecond pulsars to search for extremely low frequency (10s - 100s μHz) GW signals

Prof. Hirschfeld slides on Cosmology (PDF, Powerpoint)

Experimental tests of Relativity

• Compendium of experimental tests of Special Relativity
• Wikipedia summary of experimental tests of General Relativity. Also check out a 2017 GR experimental summary from an undergraduate thesis.

Other Cosmology/General Relativity links

• 100th anniversary of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Articles in NYTimes, phys.org, space.com