IGC celebrated its silver jubilee through an international conference igc@25: The multimessenger universe which was held at Penn State from June 23rd to 27th 2019.

2019-12-31

IGC celebrated its silver jubilee through an international conference igc@25: The multimessenger universe which was held at Penn State from June 23rd to 27th 2019. The scientific program has a dual goal: to assess the current status of our field in broad terms and to discuss future directions. The plenary talks by leading experts provided a broad overview of the field, with emphasis on developments that have occurred in the past ~25 years, while panels focused on developments over the past decade and, especially, the vision for the next decade or two. Executive Vice President and Provost Nicholas Jones inaugurated the conference. The after-dinner speech, entitled “Multimessenger Astronomy and the Big Questions of the Cosmos: A Billion Light year View”, was given by the NSF Director Dr. France Cordova.

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A new signal for a neutron star collision discovered

2019-07-12

Insight into how neutron stars are built – an international team of astronomers including current and former members of IGC publish paper describing the research.

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Two probable black-hole mergers spotted in first weeks after gravitational-wave detector is updated

2019-06-16

Two new probable gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by cataclysmic cosmic events and first predicted by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago — have been detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo observatory in Italy in the first weeks after the detectors were updated. The IGC team of LIGO scientists, led by Chad Hanna, played a critical role.

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Loops '19 Conference

2019-06-15

Loops’19, the most recent conference in a long tradition of biannual international meetings focused on loop quantum gravity and background independent approaches to quantum gravity was held at Penn State From June 17 through 21st, 2021. The scientific program highlighted recent developments in quantum gravity research, structural and computational aspects of loop quantum gravity, applications to black hole physics and cosmology. The conference is preceded by the Loops’19 Summer School held at Bard College (NY) on June 09 – 16, 2019.

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The Big Bounce, Signs in the CMB?

2019-06-10

A Loop Quantum Gravity updateIs there evidence of a cosmic Big Bounce in the sky? Can dark energy be solved by quantum gravity? In our second report from the most recent Loop Quantum Gravity Conference, we interview many of the leading physicists in the field to get an update on experimental searches for signs of Loop Quantum Gravity and Cosmology. YouTube Video prepared by Monica and Phil Halper. Filmed during Loops19 Conference.

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LIGO and Virgo observatories detect neutron star smash-ups

2019-06-01

IGC researchers Cody Messick, Ryan Magee and Alexander Pace provide their perspectives.

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Black Holes, Dark Matter & Quantum Gravity, what’s new in Loop Quantum Gravity

2019-06-01

Are black holes related to dark matter? Do the observations of black holes by LIGO hint at a signature of quantum gravity ? Can we find evidence of black holes from a previous universe? In 2019 second place in the Buchalter Cosmology Prize was awarded to two of the speakers you will see in this film which explores some of the above themes. We filmed this at the Loop Quantum Gravity Conference in 2019 and plan to make a follow up film exploring the latest ideas in the field. Look out for the optical illusion around 8:12–8:25. YouTube Video prepared by Monica and Phil Halper. Filmed during Loops19 conference.

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Abhay Ashtekar Awarded Albert Einstein Prize in Gravitational Physics

2019-04-15

Abhay Ashtekar was awarded the Albert Einstein Prize in Gravitational Physics during the April 2019 Meeting of the American Physical Society held at Denver, Co.

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B. Sathyaprakash has been elected Fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation

2019-01-01

B. Sathyaprakash has been elected Fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation “for his wide-ranging contributions to all aspects of theoretical investigations of gravitational waves, outstanding service to the international gravitational community, and for his leadership in shaping the future of the field through third-generation detectors both in Europe and the US.”

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About our wordmark
Monica The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez, while she was a graduate student at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work includes specialized topics in general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds. In particular, her thesis work focused on finding effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams, and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope and variety of research at the IGC. The base of the image represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity. These are among the approaches to fundamental questions studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle of the image represents the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology by galaxies embedded in a smooth surface, characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the much larger physical scales studied in cosmology. Finally, at the top, the surface curves to an extreme, representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet. These elements depict an active galactic nucleus, inspired by Centaurus A. Just to the right, a pair of black holes approaches merger. This top portion of the wordmark represents the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, which specializes in the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.