I am a Professor of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics, a co-hire of the Institute for Computational and Data Science (ICDS), and a member of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). I have been a faculty member of Penn State since 2014.
I am a member of the Compact Binary Coalescence group in LIGO which comprises over 200 scientists from across the world working together to use gravitational waves as a tool to explore fundamental physics and as a mechanism for astronomical discovery. I current serve as co-chair of the Computing and Software working group in LIGO.
My primary research focuses on the detection and characterization of gravitational waves from merging neutron stars an black holes with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which I have done since 2003. My group leads efforts to detect gravitational waves in real-time to support multi-messenger astrophysics. We are also exploring potential connections between black holes detected by LIGO and dark matter. My other academic interests include improving researchers' access to computational methods and infrastructure in order to hasten discoveries across a variety of fields.
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Publications
Chad Hanna's research group
| Name | Role | Affiliation | Phone | Office Address | Affiliated Center(s) | Research Topics(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Shomik Adhicary | Graduate Student | Physics | sva5823@psu.edu | +1 814 865 7533 | 334 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter, Multimessenger Astrophysics, Black Holes |
 | Joshua Gonsalves | Undergraduate Student | ICDS, Physics | jpg6184@psu.edu | 4847877738 | 334 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves |
 | Yun-Jing Huang | Graduate Student | Physics | yzh5436@psu.edu | -- | 334 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves |
 | Prathamesh Joshi | Graduate Student | ICDS, Physics | ppj5075@psu.edu | -- | 301D Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves, Multimessenger Astrophysics |
 | James Kennington | Graduate Student | Physics | jwkennington@psu.edu | +1 814 865 7533 | Box 66 Whitmore Laboratory | CFT | Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter, Black Holes, Mathematical Structures |
 | Victoria Niu | Graduate Student | Physics | wmn5062@psu.edu | +1 814 865 7533 | 334 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter, Multimessenger Astrophysics |
 | Alexander Pace | Staff | Physics | aep14@psu.edu | +1 814 865 6995 | 334B Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Cort Posnansky | Graduate Student | Physics | clp5773@psu.edu | +1 814 863 9605 | 334 Whitmore Laboratory | CMA | Black Holes, Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Shio Sakon | Graduate Student | Physics, ICDS | sks6461@psu.edu | -- | 321 F Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, Multimessenger Astrophysics |
Chad Hanna's former research group members
| Name | Role | Affiliation | Phone | Office Address | Affiliated Center(s) | Research Topics(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Sydney Chamberlin | Postdoc | Physics | smc6287@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves, Black Holes |
 | Bryce Cousins | Staff | ICDS, Physics | bfc5288@psu.edu | +1 814 863 9605 | 301 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Becca Ewing | Faculty | Physics | ree55@psu.edu | -- | 301 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC, CMA | Gravitational Waves, Multimessenger Astrophysics |
 | Daniel George | Undergraduate Student | Physics | dyg5236@psu.edu | - | - NONE | CMA | Gravitational Waves, Black Holes |
 | Patrick Godwin | Staff | Physics | patrick.godwin@ligo.org | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Anuradha Gupta | Postdoc | Physics | axg645@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Gravitational Waves, Black Holes |
 | Collin Heckman | Graduate Student | Astronomy | cmh424@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Rachael Huxford | Faculty | Physics | reh255@psu.edu | -- | 317 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves, Multimessenger Astrophysics |
 | Ryan Magee | Graduate Student | Physics | rzm50@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter, Black Holes |
 | Phoebe McClincy | Graduate Student | Astronomy | pkm5220@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter |
 | Cody Messick | Graduate Student | Physics | ccm188@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves |
 | Debnandini Mukherjee | Postdoc | Physics | Debnandini.Mukherjee@ligo.org | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves, Black Holes |
 | Surabhi Sachdev | Postdoc | Physics | szs1416@psu.edu | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics, Gravitational Waves, Black Holes |
 | Divya Singh | Faculty | Physics | dus960@psu.edu | -- | 301 Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves, Dark Matter, Black Holes |
 | Javed Rana Sk | Postdoc | Physics | javed.sk@ligo.org | -- | - NONE | CMA | Multimessenger Astrophysics |
 | Leo Tsukada | Faculty | Physics | lqt5311@psu.edu | +1 814 863 9605 | 301A Whitmore Laboratory | IGC | Gravitational Waves |
Chad Hanna's research group news
ICDS co-hire contributes to gravitational wave research
2024-10-10
A heavy use of computational tools can help to detect what has yet to be discovered, according to Chad Hanna, professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State.
Hanna, who started at the University in 2014 and is a Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) co-hire, works in a large research group as part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Hanna’s research team, which includes Research Innovations with Scientists and Engineers (RISE) team member Ron Tapia, is working to discover astrophysical events — such as gravitational waves, or ripples in spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 — caused by the merger of two black holes or other celestial objects.
“The LIGO observatory measures tiny distortions in space that are caused by the merging black holes,” Hanna said. “We are learning about the universe through measuring these tiny distortions in space. It’s a big effort that requires a lot of people for observations to run sustainably day and night.”
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Black holes of all shapes and sizes in new gravitational wave catalog
2021-11-08
The largest catalog of gravitational wave events ever assembled has been released by an international collaboration that includes members of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Gravitational waves are ripples in space time produced as aftershocks of huge astronomical events, such as the collision of two black holes. Using a global network of detectors, the research team identified 35 gravitational wave events, bringing the total number of observed events to 90 since detection efforts began in 2015.
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$3.4 million NSF grant aims to make LIGO multimessenger discoveries commonplace
2021-08-17
Chad Hanna was awarded a $3.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help develop software and services for discovering gravitational waves from black holes and neutron stars in real-time in order to facilitate the detection of prompt electromagnetic counterparts. Specifically, the funds will be used to develop robust signal processing software and the creation of a suite of cyberinfrastructure services that will allow scientists to analyze LIGO data in real time. The goal is to allow scientists to make more discoveries, as well as be able to easily share those discoveries with the scientific community, which ultimately, will improve our understanding of the universe. “We hope that this grant will benefit the entire scientific community and that, with it, we’ll make robust detections of increasingly more gravitational waves from neutron star mergers, and other signals that might have electromagnetic or neutrino counterparts,” said Hanna. Hanna’s group leads efforts to detect gravitational waves in real-time to support multi-messenger astrophysics. The group is also involved with developing detection algorithms and software to identify the neutron star mergers in the gravitational wave data and using machine learning to cut through noisy data gathered during the gravitational wave observations. Both are integral to the real-time infrastructure and improvements will help facilitate future LIGO research.
Observation of gravitational waves from two neutron star-black hole mergers
2021-07-02
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Scientific Collaboration, has announced the discovery of two neutron star-black hole mergers in the data from the third observing run, separated by 10 days on 5 and 15 January 2021. The IGC LIGO group played a crucial role in this new discovery: Both of these mergers were detected as part of real-time gravitational wave processing conducted by members of the IGC LIGO group. LIGO and Virgo detectors have previously observed the merger of dozens of binary black holes and two binary neutron stars. Neutron star-black hole binaries were believed to exist but this is the first time ever astronomers have witnessed such a phenomena. In each case, the neutron star was likely swallowed whole by its black-hole partner without emitting any electromagnetic radiation. The system observed on January 5 had companion masses of 1.5 solar mass for the neutron star and 5.6 solar mass for the black hole, while the one observed on January 15 had masses 1.9 solar mass for the neutron star and 8.7 solar mass for the black hole. Both the systems came from roughly a distance of 300 Mpc. The details of the announcement can be found in the Penn State News Article.
Professor Chad Hanna has been awarded Penn State’s Faculty Scholar Medal
2021-04-23
Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. At LIGO, Hanna developed data analysis pipelines responsible for discovery of gravitational waves generated by the merger of binary black holes and binary neutron stars. The nomination said “Dr. Hanna has proven himself to be a leading scientist who has made forefront contributions to one of the major physics discoveries of modern times”.
Q&A with the Penn State LIGO Group
2020-11-09
Chad Hanna, associate professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics; B.S. Sathyaprakash, Elsbach Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics; and graduate students Rebecca Ewing, Rachael Huxford and Divya Singh discuss discoveries made in the third LIGO-Virgo run that increased the number of observed binary coalescences from 11 to 50.
On May 21, 2019 the Advanced LIGO detectors at Hanford and Livingston in the USA and the Virgo detector in Italy, observed a gravitational wave signal from the heaviest merger of black holes, yet observed.
2020-09-01
The merging black holes being roughly 85 and 66 times as heavy as our sun, are among the heaviest ones seen yet. The LIGO group at PSU played a significant role in the observation of this very short and difficult to detect signal which lasted for about one tenth of a second. The remnant produced by the merger is as heavy as about 142 times the mass of our sun which places it in the category of intermediate-mass black holes, an elusive type of heavy black holes that had not been observed directly so far. Being heavier than the black holes observed which have masses comparable to our sun, but less heavy than the supermassive black holes that occupy the centres of galaxies, these intermediate-mass black holes and their formation methods are not well understood by astrophysicists. In fact this discovery is also unusual because it questions existing astrophysical models of black hole formation and stands to open new doors in our understanding of these objects.
LIGO-Virgo finds mystery object in mass gap
2020-06-01
On August 14, 2019, the two Advanced LIGO detectors in the US, at Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, and the Advanced Virgo detector in Cascina, Italy, observed a gravitational wave signal produced by the inspiral and merger of two compact objects - one, a black hole, and the other of undetermined nature. The mass measured for the lighter compact object makes it either the lightest black hole or the heaviest neutron star ever discovered in a system of two compact objects, but we can’t be sure which it is. This is also the most asymmetric system observed in gravitational waves as of now. This event was detected in real time by the GstLAL inspiral pipeline which is developed and operated largely by the LIGO group at Penn State.
LIGO detects another probable Neutron Star collision
2020-05-02
Gravitational waves detected on April 25, 2019, by the LIGO Livingston Observatory were likely produced by a collision of two neutron stars, according to a new study by an international team including Penn State researchers. IGC members Patrick Godwin, Ryan Magee, B. Sathyaprakash and Surabhi Suchdev explain why this discovery is so exciting. This detection was made possible by the GSTLAL online software developed by faculty and postdocs at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. The total mass of the binary is significantly larger than all such systems we know in our galaxy and challenging astrophysical models of the formation of binary black holes.
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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.
LIGO and Virgo observatories detect neutron star smash-ups
2019-06-01
IGC researchers Cody Messick, Ryan Magee and Alexander Pace provide their perspectives.
