Gravitational waves

Correcting heat-induced distortions in interferometer mirrors will dramatically increase the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors The post Thermal imaging technique helps overcome a major problem for gravitational-wave astronomy appeared first on Physics World.

There's a nice kind of irony buried in this story: One of the most sensitive instruments ever built, capable of measuring distortions smaller than the width of a proton, has been quietly held back by something as mundane as heat. And the fix, it turns out, is not some exotic new sensor but a thermal camera you could genuinely buy off the shelf.

A team of researchers have found a surprisingly simple way to boost the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors like LIGO. It’s surprisingly simple to, just point an ordinary thermal imaging camera at the mirrors themselves. The technique could improve LIGO's next upgrade by up to 31%, letting it detect neutron star collisions tens of millions of light years farther away, and is already being built into the design of its planned successor, Cosmic Explorer.

Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime that are produced when massive objects in the cosmos accelerate or collide. By detecting these waves, astrophysicists can study various cosmic events, including black hole mergers, neutron star collisions and the early evolution of the universe.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have developed a new way to help gravitational-wave observatories see farther

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have developed a new way to help gravitational-wave observatories see farther into the universe by solving one of their biggest challenges: tiny heat-induced distortions in the massive mirrors at the heart of the detectors.

Listening to the "ringing" produced by black holes after they collide and merge could allow scientists to test Einstein's theory of general relativity under the most extreme conditions in the universe while unlocking the secrets of these mysterious objects.

Region near the "surface of no return" was previously only accessible with theoretical models The post Super-loud gravitational waves offer a new way to study black hole event horizons appeared first on Physics World.

Since gravitational waves were first detected in 2015, instruments including LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA have picked up a steady stream of signals from colliding black holes, building a catalog that now numbers in the hundreds. Yet despite this wealth of data, a fundamental question has remained stubbornly unresolved: How do these black holes actually form?

Author(s): Michael SchirberA proposed gravitational-wave observatory on the Moon might gather more information than previously thought, thanks to geology. [Physics 19, s89] Published Thu Jul 09, 2026

Author(s): Han Yan and Jan HarmsA proposed gravitational-wave observatory on the Moon might gather more information than previously thought, thanks to geology. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 021409] Published Thu Jul 09, 2026

Author(s): Lei Zhang, Han Yan, Xian Chen, and Jinhai ZhangA proposed gravitational-wave observatory on the Moon might gather more information than previously thought, thanks to geology. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 021408] Published Thu Jul 09, 2026

Author(s): Cailin Plunkett, Salvatore Vitale, Thomas Callister, and Michael Zevin (Society of Physicists Interested in Non-Aligned Spins (SPINS))Different analyses of gravitational-wave observations are converging on evidence for a distinct population of massive black hole binaries produced through repeated mergers. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 021404] Published Mon Jul 06, 2026

An unusual gravitational wave signal has renewed hopes that primordial black holes, long considered purely theoretical, may finally be within reach of discovery. If confirmed, they could solve one of astronomy's greatest mysteries by explaining the nature of dark matter.

Astronomers have released the largest gravitational wave catalog ever, revealing 161 new black hole collisions and pushing the total number of detections to 390. Among the highlights are the clearest gravitational wave signal ever recorded, the most accurate location of a black hole merger, and growing evidence that some black holes are the products of previous black hole mergers. With discoveries now arriving several times a week, gravitational wave astronomy is entering an exciting new era.

University of Oxford researchers have contributed to a major advance towards building large-scale quantum sensors capable of operating

The loudest crash of gravitational waves ever heard provides an intriguing way of studying event horizons, the boundaries at which nothing can escape the grip of these cosmic titans.

A new expanded catalogue of gravitational wave events will offer astronomers unprecedented insights into the most energetic phenomena

Pairing atom-based sensors cancels overwhelming laser noise, revealing faint signals that future detectors could use to probe hidden cosmic phenomena.

A prototype quantum sensor developed by researchers at Imperial has demonstrated for the first time that a key principle behind next-generation quantum detectors can work under realistic conditions.

Picture the Milky Way not as a silent pinwheel of stars but as something that quietly sings. Scattered through it are millions of pairs of dead stars, mostly white dwarfs, whirling around each other and stirring ripples in spacetime as they go. Individually, these ripples are far too faint to notice. Together, they blur into a constant background hum, and a planned European space mission called LISA is being built to listen for it.

We are used to thinking of gravitational waves as messengers from catastrophes in space, the ringing of spacetime after black holes collide for example. But our own Galaxy hums with a fainter, steadier signal, a chorus of millions of unseen binary stars. A new study has found that this hum carries a hidden fingerprint of the Milky Way's spin, and that if a future space mission ignores it, our picture of the Galaxy itself could come out subtly wrong.

Dark matter may alter the dynamics of colliding black holes and leave a signature in their gravitational-wave emission. The post Novel gravitational-wave model sheds light on dark matter appeared first on Physics World.

Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in spacetime. Their first direct detection in 2015 marked a revolutionary moment in astronomy. Today, we have a thorough understanding of signals that travel far from their sources through quiet, nearly empty space, such as those emitted when black holes merge. In this case, the wave can be considered a minor disturbance on a silent background. The distinction between "background" and "wave" is clear, and the quantity measured by the detector—a tiny stretching and squeezing—is clearly determined.

Author(s): Guillem Domènech, Shi Pi (皮石), and Ao Wang (王奥)The ambiguity in associating gravitational waves with transverse-traceless components of the metric at second order in perturbation theory is resolved by computing the detector response to second order for the first time. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 221402] Published Wed Jun 03, 2026

The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) detector network has a new trick up its sleeve to improve the instruments’ sensitivity to gravitational waves: it’s called Astrophysical Calibration and it plays a role similar to auto-tune in music production.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research are celebrating the publication of a vast new treasure trove of gravitational wave detections, hailed as a milestone marking the coming of age of gravitational astronomy.

Author(s): Mark BuchananA new scheme for gravitational-wave detection provides new capabilities to reduce the noise in these high-precision measurements. [Physics 19, 75] Published Fri May 15, 2026

New theoretical work suggests that the pattern of light emitted by atoms could be used to detect gravitational waves at frequencies outside the range of traditional detectors The post Gravitational waves could leave traces in light from cold atoms appeared first on Physics World.

Dark matter makes up roughly 85 percent of all the matter in the universe. We have never directly detected a single particle of it. But a new method developed by physicists at MIT and across Europe may have just opened a door we didn't know existed. When two black holes collide and merge, they send ripples through the fabric of spacetime, these are known as gravitational waves and if those black holes happened to spiral through a dense cloud of dark matter on their way in, those waves carry an imprint of it. For the first time, scientists have a technique to read that imprint and one signal in the existing data is already raising eyebrows.

Gravitational wave researchers working on the world's most sensitive scientific instruments have found a way to tune their detectors using a process akin to the pitch-correction used in music production.

Dark matter is thought to make up most of the matter in the universe, but the only way it interacts with its surroundings is through gravity. If two colliding black holes spiral through a dense region of dark matter and merge, gravitational waves rippling across space and time could carry an imprint of that dark matter.

In the sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, humans build “gravitational wave antennas” to broadcast to the cosmos. Now, Chinese scientists have made a step forward in turning that idea into hardware – only in reverse. Science and Technology Daily reported on Saturday that a team from the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences had developed the optical core of a giant space detector to listen to the universe. The detector is part of a space-based gravitational wave project...

Stars in this range may form a long-predicted type of supernova instead The post Evidence for a ‘forbidden range’ of black hole masses emerges in gravitational wave observations appeared first on Physics World.

In the chaotic first moments after the Big Bang, ripples in spacetime may have done more than just echo through the cosmos—they could have helped create dark matter itself. New research suggests that faint, ancient gravitational waves might have transformed into particles that eventually became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today.

Scientists have proposed a surprising new way to detect gravitational waves—by observing how they change the light emitted by atoms. These waves can subtly shift photon frequencies in different directions, leaving behind a detectable signature. The effect doesn’t change how much light atoms emit, which is why it’s gone unnoticed until now. If confirmed, this approach could lead to ultra-compact detectors using cold-atom systems.

An international team led by Monash University has uncovered evidence of a rare form of exploding star, helping to shed light on one of the most cataclysmic events in the universe. At the end of their lives, most massive stars collapse into black holes—objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape.

Gravitational waves could be responsible for the production of dark matter during the early phases of our universe's formation, according to results of a new study by Professor Joachim Kopp from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the PRISMA Cluster of Excellence in cooperation with Dr. Azadeh Maleknejad from Swansea University. Their work, published in Physical Review Letters, presents new calculations that explore a novel mechanism for the formation of dark matter through so-called stochastic gravitational waves.

This week, among a lot of other important findings, we learned that emperor cichlid fish have gaze sensitivity and dislike it if you look at them—or especially their children. England is looking for a solution to its 5-billion-liter water deficit. And a high-fiber diet isn't only healthy for you—it also benefits your parasitic tapeworms!

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime produced by violent cosmic events, such as the merging of black holes. So far, direct detections have relied on measuring tiny distance changes over kilometer-scale instruments. In a new theoretical study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers at Stockholm University, Nordita, and the University of Tübingen propose an unconventional approach: tracking how gravitational waves reshape the light emitted by atoms. The work describes a possible detection route, but an experimental demonstration remains for the future.

A new data release more than doubles the number of gravitational-wave candidate events—and reveals unexpected complexities of merging black holes

When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off gravitational waves that reverberate

Neutron stars harbor some of the most extreme environments in the universe: their densities soar to several times those of atomic nuclei, and they possess some of the strongest gravitational fields of any known objects, surpassed only by black holes. First observed in the 1960s, much of the internal composition of neutron stars is still unknown. Scientists are beginning to look to gravitational waves emitted by binary neutron‐star inspirals—pairs of mutually orbiting neutron stars—as possible sources of information about their interiors.

A new study published in Nature Astronomy indicates that the dense, star- and dark-matter–rich environments around supermassive black hole binaries pack on the order of a million solar masses into each cubic parsec. The team used gravitational-wave data from pulsar timing arrays to probe galactic centers that are otherwise impossible to observe directly.

When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off ripples, in the form of gravitational waves, that reverberate across space and time, over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. By the time they pass through Earth, such cosmic ripples are barely discernible.

Neutron stars are ultra-dense remnants of massive stars that collapsed after supernova explosions and are made up mostly of subatomic particles with no electric charge (i.e., neutrons). When two neutron stars collide, they are predicted to produce gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime that travel at the speed of light.

On 14 January, 2025, two colliding black holes sent the clearest gravitational wave signal ever recorded rippling across the universe to Earth’s detectors. This remarkably crisp signal, designated GW250114, has allowed physicists to conduct the most stringent test yet of Einstein’s general relativity by measuring multiple “tones” from the collision. The wave passed the test with flying colours, but researchers remain optimistic that future detections might finally reveal where Einstein’s century old theory breaks down, potentially offering the first glimpses of quantum gravity.

The universe is a big place, and tracking down some of the more interesting parts of it is tricky. Some of the most interesting parts of it, at least from a physics perspective, are merging black holes, so scientists spend a lot of time trying to track those down. One of the most recent attempts to do so was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) collaboration. While they didn’t find any clear-cut evidence of continuous gravitational waves from merging black hole systems, they did manage to point out plenty of false alarms, and even disprove some myths about ones we thought actually existed.

A record-breaking gravitational wave signal let scientists "listen" to a distant black hole merger and put Einstein's gravity to its toughest test yet.

Ripples in space-time from a pair of merging black holes have been recorded in unprecedented detail, enabling physicists to test predictions of general relativity

An international collaboration of astrophysicists that includes researchers from Yale has created and tested a detection system that uses gravitational waves to map out the locations of merging black holes—known as supermassive black hole binaries—around the universe. Such a map would provide a vital new way to explore and understand astronomy and physics, just as X-rays and radio waves did in earlier eras, the researchers say. The new protocol demonstrated by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) offers a detection protocol to populate the map.

A newly detected gravitational wave, GW250114, is giving scientists their clearest look yet at a black hole collision—and a powerful way to test Einstein’s theory of gravity. Its clarity allowed scientists to measure multiple “tones” from the collision, all matching Einstein’s predictions. That confirmation is exciting—but so is the possibility that future signals won’t behave so neatly. Any deviation could point to new physics beyond our current understanding of gravity.

For those who watch gravitational waves roll in from the universe, GW250114 is a big one. It's the clearest gravitational wave signal from a binary black hole merger to date, and it gives researchers an opportunity to test Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, known as general relativity.

Author(s): Jamie Bamber, Antonios Tsokaros, Milton Ruiz, Stuart L. Shapiro, Marc Favata, Matthew Karlson, and Fabrizio Venturi PiñasThe full displacement memory signal from binary neutron star mergers, including both the contribution from the gravitational waves themselves and from the electromagnetic, neutrino and baryonic ejecta is quantified using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041401] Published Mon Jan 26, 2026

Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder may have solved a pressing mystery about the universe's gravitational wave background.

A new study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam shows how gravitational waves from black holes can be used to reveal the presence of dark matter and help determine its properties. The key is a new model, based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, that tracks in detail how a black hole interacts with the surrounding matter.

Gravitational waves from black holes may soon reveal where dark matter is hiding. A new model shows how dark matter surrounding massive black holes leaves detectable fingerprints in the waves recorded by future space observatories.

A new study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam shows how gravitational waves from black holes can be used to reveal the presence of dark matter and help determine its properties. The key is a new model, based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, that tracks in detail how a black hole interacts with the surrounding matter.

Author(s): Laura Bernard, Suvendu Giri, Luis Lehner, and Riccardo SturaniTreating deviations from general relativity (GR) in the framework of effective field theories (EFT), the authors develop a formalism for computing gravitational waveforms in the inspiral phase of binary black hole coalescence. The authors work within the post-Newtonian expansion to characterize the deviations. These results can be used in ongoing experimental tests of GR in the inspiral phase. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 124013] Published Wed Dec 03, 2025

Scientists may have "heard" the first tantalizing evidence of primordial black holes formed directly from overly dense pockets of matter just after the Big Bang.

Forty years after their invention, laser systems based on non-planar ring oscillators (NPROs) are among the most important

Astronomers approach unusual observation with caution and excitement

Black holes, regions of spacetime in which gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, are intriguing and extensively studied cosmological phenomena. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that when two black holes merge, they emit ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves.

Learn about two black hole mergers in 2024 that experts revisited with new information from gravitational waves, confirming theories made by Albert Einstein.

Current gravitational wave observatories can't see a range of frequencies known as mid-band. That could change with a new detector that uses a trick from atomic clocks.

In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the international LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration reports on the detection of two gravitational wave events in October and November of 2024 with unusual black hole spins. This observation adds an important new piece to our understanding of the most elusive phenomena in the universe.

FROnt Surface Type Irradiator, or FROSTI, will allow future detectors to run at higher laser powers, reducing noise and expanding capabilities The post New adaptive optics technology boosts the power of gravitational wave detectors appeared first on Physics World.

Astronomers are listening for cosmic gravitational waves in the rhythm of pulsars. But even after finding them, they will need to distinguish between cosmic waves and the more local waves of black holes.

Author(s): Keisuke Inomata, Marc Kamionkowski, Kentaro Kasai, and Bibhushan ShakyaIn this paper, the authors discuss a new source of gravitational waves from first order phase transitions. The collision of bubbles in the new phase can efficiently produce particles that couple to the background field undergoing the transition, transferring a significant amount of the released vacuum energy into particle populations that long outlive the bubbles and provide a novel source of gravitational waves. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 083523] Published Tue Oct 14, 2025

A new paper outlines a method to distinguish between sources of nanohertz gravitational waves.

Pulsars suggest that ultra–low-frequency gravitational waves are rippling through the cosmos. The signal seen by international pulsar timing array collaborations in 2023 could come from a stochastic gravitational-wave background—the sum of many distant sources—or from a single nearby binary of supermassive black holes.

Global network could pinpoint astronomical sources The post Phase shift in optical cavities could detect low-frequency gravitational waves appeared first on Physics World.

The world's most sensitive table-top interferometric system—a miniature version of miles-long gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO—has completed its first science run.

Author(s): Valentin Boyanov, Vitor Cardoso, Kostas D. Kokkotas, and Jaime Redondo-YusteA neutron star’s viscosity determines how the star interacts with gravitational waves, a behavior that could be useful to the study of neutron-star interiors. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 151402] Published Wed Oct 08, 2025

Author(s): Sumanta ChakrabortyA neutron star’s viscosity determines how the star interacts with gravitational waves, a behavior that could be useful to the study of neutron-star interiors. [Physics 18, 169] Published Wed Oct 08, 2025

Author(s): Tomasz Baka, Harsh Narola, Justin Janquart, Anuradha Samajdar, Tim Dietrich, and Chris Van Den BroeckThe problem of overlapping signals in gravitational wave astronomy refers to situations where signals from distinct events overlap in time. They pose a challenge for distinguishing the sources of the signals and accurately performing parameter estimation. This paper proposes an approach to addressing this issue for next-generation gravitational wave detectors. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 082001] Published Fri Oct 03, 2025

Researchers have designed a new type of gravitational wave detector that operates in the milli-Hertz range, a region untouched by current observatories. Built with optical resonators and atomic clocks, the compact detectors can fit on a lab table yet probe signals from exotic binaries and ancient cosmic events. Unlike LIGO, they’re relatively immune to seismic noise and could start working long before space missions like LISA launch.

Physicists have proposed a new way to detect elusive gravitational waves in the ‘midband’. These waves are generated by binary systems of white dwarfs and neutron stars in the Milky Way and black hole mergers but are not detectable with current instruments. The approach uses ‘optical resonator’ technology originally developed for optical atomic clocks, which […]

Scientists have unveiled a new approach to detecting gravitational waves in the milli-Hertz frequency range, providing access to astrophysical and cosmological phenomena that are not detectable with current instruments.

In this podcast we also make predictions for this year’s physics award The post The curious history of Nobel prizes: from lighthouses to gravitational waves appeared first on Physics World.

Gravitational-wave detection technology is poised to make a big leap forward thanks to an instrumentation advance led by physicist Jonathan Richardson of the University of California, Riverside. A paper detailing the invention, published in the journal Optica, reports the successful development and testing of FROSTI, a full-scale prototype for controlling laser wavefronts at extreme power levels inside the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO.

Interference from human activity has always been a sticking point in astronomical observations. Radio astronomy is notoriously sensitive to unintentional interference—hence why there are "radio silent" zones near telescopes where cell phones are banned. But gravitational wave astronomy is affected to an even worse degree than radio astronomy, according to a new paper published on the arXiv preprint server by Reed Essick of the University of Toronto, and it's not clear there's much we can do about it.

On Sept. 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes

Ten Years Later, LIGO is a Black-Hole Hunting Machine lexigault60428 Fri, 09/12/2025 - 10:00 Ten Years Later, LIGO is a Black-Hole Hunting Machine https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/ten-years-later-ligo-is-a-black-hole-hunting-machine

The Einstein Telescope could usher in a new age of gravitational-wave astronomy The post Celebrating 10 years of gravitational waves appeared first on Physics World.

On September 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes that had spiraled together and merged. The signal had traveled about 1.3 billion years to reach us at the speed of light—but it was not made of light. It was a different kind of signal: a quivering of space-time called gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years prior.

The first-ever detection of gravitational waves was made 10 years ago today (Sept. 14). In celebration, Space.com takes you through the most significant gravitational wave discoveries to date.

When LIGO detected gravitational waves unleashed from two colliding black holes for the first time in science history, it set off a whole new era in astronomy.

Ten years after scientists first detected gravitational waves emerging from two colliding black holes, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, a research team that includes Columbia astronomy professor Maximiliano Isi, has recorded a signal from a nearly identical black hole collision.

This week, researchers reported on a new biopsy tool that can detect HPV-associated head and neck cancer up to 10 years before symptoms appear. Researchers developed a process to transform two-dimensional paintings into full-color, three-dimensional holograms, providing a new way to experience art in a gallery setting. And Chinese scientists designed a physical cassette capable of storing massive amounts of data encoded as DNA on a polyester-nylon tape substrate.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Ten years ago, scientists heard the universe rumble for the first time. That first discovery of gravitational waves proved a key prediction from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and began a new era of astronomy.

Author(s): Chiara M. F. MingarelliThe clearest black hole merger signal ever measured has allowed researchers to test the Kerr nature of black holes and validate Stephen Hawking’s black hole area theorem. [Physics 18, 160] Published Wed Sep 10, 2025