Research

Gravitational waves from black holes

In the universe, existence of black holes (a massive object from which light cannot escape) is inferred from various observation. It is now widely accepted that the center of every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole. However, it is still difficult to probe the existence observationally. An ideal method is to observe gravitational waves emitted from spiraling or colliding /merging blackhole binaries. Since gravitational waves do not interact with matter, we can probe the spacetime near the horizon of the blackholes using gravitational waves.

Currently, several gravitational wave telescopes are trying to detect the direct signals. If we can detect gravitational waves, we will be able to answer fundamental questions such as " How many black holes in the universe?", "What is the mass of the black holes?", or "Is the Einstein’s theory right?" It will certainly be the dawn of a new era for gravitational wave astronomy.