Humanity's quest to put eyes and ears on gravitational waves

Outreach talk, 50 min. Oct. 2017: Staunton River Star Party, Scottsburg, VA, USA.

Transcript

1. Humanity's Quest To Put Eyes And Ears On Gravitational Waves Dr. JJ Hermes Hubble Fellow University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill www.jjherm.es
2. V = 13.3 mag Electromagnetic Radiation a.k.a. Visible Light
3. V = 13.3 mag Wiggling a Charge Gives Off Radiation!
4. V = 13.3 mag Hotter Things Give Off Bluer Light!
5. V = 13.3 mag Einstein: Mass Bends Space (General Relativity)
6. V = 13.3 mag Close Pairs of Stars Bob in the Wake of Each Others’ Masses Producing Gravitational Waves!
7. V = 13.3 mag H -> He fusion in core He -> C/O -> … fusion in core 0.08-8 M¤ 8-15 M¤ >15 M¤ Stars Evolve; Some Blow Up!
8. V = 13.3 mag Binary Neutron Stars
9. V = 13.3 mag Hulse-Taylor Binary Pulsar – 14 – Porb = 7.75 hr Shrinking by 0.076 ms/yr Nobel prize in 1993
10. V = 13.3 mag
11. phase = 0 J0651+2844: A 12.75-min WD+WD Binary 1 million times fainter than an unaided eye can see
13. Mid-Eclipse Times are Changing Rapidly!
15. Now: Porbit = 12.75 min 500,000 yr from now: Porbit = 10 min 750,000 yr from now: Porbit = 8.5 min 1,000,000 yr from now: Porbit = 7 min Mass Transfer Begins
16. INDIRECT
17. V = 13.3 mag Gravitational Waves Stretch Space, But Very Subtly ΔL L ~ 10-21 Proton: 10-15 m
18. V = 13.3 mag
19. V = 13.3 mag
20. V = 13.3 mag
21. V = 13.3 mag LIGO
22. V = 13.3 mag
23. V = 13.3 mag
24. V = 13.3 mag
25. V = 13.3 mag 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
27. 2017-08-17 at 12:41 UTC
30. ~30 deg2 = 120 x full moon
34. V = 13.3 mag NGC 4993 13:09:47.2 −23:23:04 40 Mpc (130 Mly) V=12.4 E/S0 galaxy
37. 4.1-m SOAR telescope, Chile 2017-08-23, t=+5.5 d
38. 2017-08-23T23:29:21.26 I > 20.1 mag
40. V = 13.3 mag Jennifer Johnson
41. V = 13.3 mag Kyle Slinker, UNC Chapel Hill Gravitational Waves: Listening to Black Holes Collide Dr. Bart Dunlap, UNC Chapel Hill The Bangs and Whimpers of Stellar Collisions Tue Nov. 7 Free, All Ages Welcome Fullsteam Brewery, Durham, NC 7-9 pm; Talks start at 7:30 pm Come Hear About Gravitational Waves Over Some High-Gravity Beers! @AoTTriangle facebook.com/aottriangle Nobel Approved!
42. V = 13.3 mag