Scientific Highlights

IFAE leads an international project to pave the way for the Einstein Telescope: a European Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatory

September 7, 2022

ET-PP is an Horizon Europe INFRA-DEV project that started on September 1st 2022 to address the fundamental prerequisites for the approval, construction and operation of the Einstein Telescope. The Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) is the coordinator institution of this project that comprises leading research centers from 11 countries.

35 new spacetime quakes detected by Virgo and LIGO

November 8, 2021

35 new events detected by LIGO and Virgo in their latest observation period bring to 90 the gravitational waves detected so far. The dataset, published today outlines the features of new populations of black holes, the masses of which, together with those of the observed neutron stars, provide clues about how stars live and die, further broadening the horizons of gravitational astronomy.

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.