Media Releases

Scientists to provide update on the search for gravitational waves

February 8, 2016

Toron­to, ON– Media are invit­ed to view a live web­cast at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (U of T) as the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion brings togeth­er sci­en­tists from Cal­tech, MIT, and the LIGO Sci­en­tif­ic Col­lab­o­ra­tion this Thurs­day at 10:30 a.m. (EST) at Washington’s Nation­al Press Club for a sta­tus report on the effort to detect grav­i­ta­tion­al waves – or rip­ples in the fab­ric of space­time – using the Laser Inter­fer­om­e­ter Grav­i­ta­tion­al-wave Obser­va­to­ry (LIGO).

Par­tic­i­pants in the LIGO Sci­en­tif­ic Col­lab­o­ra­tion who are based at the Cana­di­an Insti­tute for The­o­ret­i­cal Astro­physics at U of T will be in atten­dance. Har­ald Pfeif­fer, Cana­da Research Chair for Numer­i­cal Rel­a­tiv­i­ty and Grav­i­ta­tion­al Wave Astro­physics and fel­low in the Cos­mol­o­gy and Grav­i­ty pro­gram at the Cana­di­an Insti­tute for Advanced Research, will be avail­able to com­ment on the sig­nif­i­cance of the update and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s role in the project.

For media unable to attend this live-view­ing event, a URL for the live stream will be made avail­able at 9:30 am on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 11.

This year marks the 100^th anniver­sary of the first pub­li­ca­tion of Albert Einstein’s pre­dic­tion of the exis­tence of grav­i­ta­tion­al waves. With inter­est in this top­ic piqued by the cen­ten­ni­al, the group will dis­cuss their ongo­ing efforts to observe and mea­sure cos­mic grav­i­ta­tion­al waves for sci­en­tif­ic research.

For back­ground about the project, vis­it:

• LIGO Lab: https://ligo.caltech.edu/ (Obser­va­to­ries: Liv­ingston | Han­ford)
• Advanced LIGO: https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/
• LIGO Sci­en­tif­ic Col­lab­o­ra­tion: http://www.ligo.org/
• Grav­i­ta­tion­al waves research at U of T: cita.utoronto.ca/research/gravitational-waves/

WHEN:

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 11, 2016
10:30 AM EST

WHERE:

Cana­di­an Insti­tute for The­o­ret­i­cal Astro­physics
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Room 1318, Bur­ton Tow­er
McLen­nan Phys­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries
60 St. George Street
Toron­to, ON

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Media Con­tacts:

Sean Bet­tam
Fac­ul­ty of Arts & Sci­ence
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
s.bettam@utoronto.ca
416–946-7950 (b)
647–228-5820 ©

Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
media.relations@utoronto.ca
416–978-0100

Lind­say Jolivet
Cana­di­an Insti­tute for Advanced Research
lindsay.jolivet@cifar.ca
416–971-4876