LISA

Virtually everything we know about the Universe has been discovered from the study of photons --- light in all its myriad forms from radio waves, to visible light, to x-rays and beyond. At the dawn of the 21st century, advanced technology is providing access to the Cosmos through detection of ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself -- gravitational waves.

This talk will explore the modern description of gravity, what gravitational waves are and how we hope to measure them, and what we hope to learn from their detection. We'll focus on the forthcoming space gravitational wave observatory, LISA, being launched in the early 2030s by ESA and NASA. LISA observations will unveil the stories of what happens when two black holes collide at the centers of galaxies, of how the compact stars fall into monstrous black holes, and of how the graveyard of the galaxy is filled with the…