ERC Synergy Grant: Making sense of the unexpected in the gravitational-wave sky
The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is one of the four partners in the international consortium GWSky, which the European Research Council has awarded 12 million euros to develop a deeper understanding of gravitational waves.
Existing and future gravitational-wave detectors will be capable of observing signals with such precision that they may reveal possible deviations from Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the standard model of particle physics. To fully exploit this unique instrumental capability, fundamental advances are required in the theoretical description of black holes and their dynamics, the gravitational waves they emit, their cosmic environment, and the physics beyond the standard model. To provide the necessary theoretical framework, the project GWSky has been awarded 12 million euros over the next six years by the European Research Council. The ERC Synergy grant involves four nodes: the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute, AEI) at the Potsdam Science Park, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, the SISSA (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati) in Trieste, and the University of California, in Los Angeles.
The aim of the project called “Making Sense of the Unexpected in the Gravitational-Wave Sky” (GWSky), is to use gravitational-wave measurements by existing and future observatories on the Earth and in space as precision laboratories for fundamental physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. This includes the current LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detectors, as well as the future ground-based observatories Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope, and the space-based detector LISA.