Scientific Highlights

Einstein Telescope approved for ESFRI Roadmap 2021

July 1, 2021

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has included the Einstein Telescope (ET) in the 2021 upgrade of its roadmap. This confirms the relevance of this major international project for a next generation gravitational waves observatory. IFAE researcher Mario Martínez is a member of the Einstein Telescope Steering Committee that prepared the ESFRI candidature.

First observations of ‘mixed’ black hole and neutron star pairs

June 29, 2021

The Virgo, LIGO and KAGRA scientific collaborations today announced the first observation ever of binary systems consisting of a neutron star (NS) and a black hole (BH). The existence of these systems was predicted by astronomers several decades ago, but they had never been observed with confidence, either through electromagnetic or gravitational signals, until now.

New Instrumented baffle installed at Virgo

April 28, 2021

The installation culminates more than two years of work at IFAE for the design and construction of a novel and innovative device to control and monitor the stray light inside the experiment, a persistent source of noise at interferometers. For the first time a Spanish Institution is making a significant hardware contribution to a worldwide leading gravitational waves experiment using ground-based interferometry.

Over 100 black holes detected by Virgo and LIGO in the first run of 2019

October 29, 2020

The classification and definitive analysis of the 39 events detected by Virgo and LIGO in the third observation period was published today on ArXiv. Most of these are black hole mergers, the characteristics of which, however, question some established astrophysical models and open up new scenarios.

Proposal to include the Einstein Telescope in the ESFRI roadmap presented

September 10, 2020

The proposal to include the Einstein Telescope, a pioneering third-generation gravitational-wave (GW) observatory, in the 2021 update of the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) roadmap has been submitted.

Virgo and LIGO unveil new and unexpected black hole populations

September 2, 2020

Virgo and LIGO have announced the detection of an extraordinarily massive merging binary system: two black holes of 66 and 85 solar masses, which generated a final black hole of around 142 solar masses.

Virgo and LIGO spot a mystery object merging with a black hole

June 23, 2020

Virgo and LIGO have announced the discovery of a compact object of about 2.6 solar masses, placing it in a range between the heaviest neutron star and the lightest black hole ever seen.

GW190412: The merger of two black holes with unequal masses

April 12, 2020

The LIGO and Virgo Collaborations have observed gravitational waves produced by the inspiral and merger of two black holes. The signal, named GW190412, was produced by a coalescing BBH system with unequal masses, one component being more than 3 times heavier than the other one.

Virgo and LIGO join forces for a new year-long signal hunt

March 26, 2019

The Virgo and LIGO detectors are ready to start the new Observing run called O3, lasting a whole year. The hunt for gravitational waves is set to start on April 1st when the Virgo detector and the LIGO twin detectors will start to take data becoming together the most sensitive gravitational wave observatory to date