ASTROPHYSICS


EXPERIMENT
LIGO: The University of Florida is a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project. This experiment has as its goal the detection and study of gravitational waves. These waves, first predicted by Einstein more than 70 years ago, have never been observed, despite a number of attempts over the last 30 years.

LISA: The Lisa Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a joined NASA/ESA mission aimed to detect gravitational waves in space. It is part of NASA's Beyond Einstein program. Our group is developing an experimental testbed to test LISA interferometric techniques, data correlation techniques, and data reduction schemes. We are also characterizing the stability of various ultra-stable materials and study laser communication techniques for space missions.

AXIONS: The University of Florida is a member of a team conducting a search for axions. The discovery of the axion, or placing strong limits on its existence, would have profound implications for two of the most important problems in contemporary physics: (i) the origin of CP symmetry in the strong interactions, and(ii) the composition of the dark matter that makes up approximately 90% of the mass of the universe.


THEORY
Stellar variability has been found to be the norm rather than the exception and practically all stars undergo some phase of pulsationally unstable behavior during their evolution. Our study of the nonlinear pulsational behavior of stellar models uses a mixture of tools ranging from brute force numerical hydrodynamics to sophisticated dimensional reduction techniques.

The University of Florida has formed a group for participation in LIGO together with Caltech and MIT. The UF group has assumed design and construction responsibility for one of the initial LIGO interferometer subsystems and is taking part in the design and specification of an expected major upgrade after the first science data run is complete. We are also part of a LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) studying sources of gravitational waves and their signal characteristics, in preparation for eventually doing gravitational wave astronomy.