Prof. Rana Adhikari
California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California

Abstract:
In this decade, the detection of gravitational radiation from
astrophysical sources will become commonplace. The 2nd generation
interferometers in the U.S., Italy, and Japan will be the components
of a global network capable of localizing sources in the sky ; this
will allow us to form a pictures of the most violent events in the
universe with both electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. I will
describe how these interferometers can measure space-time strains
which are 100 million times smaller than a proton and a vison for
future upgrades to extend their reach back to the merger of the first
black holes in the universe.

About the Speaker:

Rana Adhikari is a faculty member in Physics at CalTech, and a leading researcher in the experimental effort for detection of gravitational radiation (GW) from astrophysical sources at the LIGO labs. He heads the upgrade to advanced LIGO phase of the detectors in the US. Rana is visiting IUCAA under the recently funded IUSSTF joint centre (Caltech-IUCAA) and has been touring various labs, industries to assess the case for a possible major Indian contribution to the International experimental GW effort.