RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Tuesday, 22 November 2016, 11:00-12:00; Duffield Lecture Theatre


Salvatore Vitale

"Characterization of black holes with gravitational waves"

The recent discovery of gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes suggests these sources will be detected in large number in the next few years. Detected signals can be used to characterize black holes, yielding direct estimation of their masses and spins. In this talk I will report on the precision we can expect from advanced LIGO and other advanced detectors at characterizing black holes in binary systems. I will also consider the proposed next generation of gravitational-wave detectors, and show how they have the potential of detecting binary black holes from large redshifts, and enable precise astrophysics and cosmology.