Gravity and astrophysics at UMiss

Exactly 100 years ago today Einstein delivered the lecture to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in which he presented the field equations of general relativity. To celebrate the event, Classical and Quantum Gravity published a Focus Issue identifying key events that occurred during the 100 years following publication of the theory and had an immediate and major impact on the field, informing or spurring ongoing research today.

Our preprint Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. I: Supermassive black hole binaries is on the arXiv. The article, led by Antoine Klein, is the result of studies performed for the Gravitational Observatory Advisory Team (GOAT), established by the European Space Agency to advise on the scientific and technological approaches for a space-based gravitational-wave observatory with a planned launch date in 2034. In the meanwhile, LISA Pathfinder is getting ready for a December 2 launch: see the Physics of the Cosmos webpage for some amazing pictures (sample below).

Kate Dooley will give a talk on general relativity (”Curved Space-Time: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of General Relativity”) at the next Oxford Science Cafe tomorrow, November 17. Read all about it here and make sure to attend if you can!

George and Antoine are visiting Emanuele at Caltech (TAPIR) for a few weeks in November.