“So lived the discovery of gravitational waves Einstein” – PanamaOn

Several teachers and researchers of the Group of Relativity and Gravitation at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) are members of the scientific collaboration Advanced LIGO, which this week announced the first detection of gravitational waves. Always keep in mind the day when there was the discovery, on 14 September, when a century Einstein’s prediction came true.

Alicia Sintes

Professor of the Physics department of the UIB and member of the Board of LIGO

it was a very special for all of us at the university Monday, but it would be much more. We had just organize Relativistic Meetings Spanish (ERE2015), the student Alex Vañó had defended his doctoral thesis, visited us future members of the group, was construction on our building and also had just started classes!

in the midst of all this, our mail began to flood with technical messages pointing to results of the data analysis system online. It was very strange, because the detectors were still operating in test mode and had not started officially the first observation period Advanced LIGO, which was to start four days later, on Sept. 18.

But the number of messages is increased excessively and that most of our American colleagues still be sleeping. I started looking links. All figures correspond to a signal from the collapse of a binary system. Everything seemed very strange: The signal was clear, textbook

“Everything seemed very strange: The signal was clear from textbook! “

I questioned if they returned to test the collaboration with other artificial blind injection. But according to information available to us, the injection system was disconnected. What was certain is that the sensitivity of the detectors was already very good, compared to the first generation LIGO detectors. Advanced LIGO in its initial mode could explore a volume 27 times greater than the last observation period LIGO end of 2010.

The fact is that more and more people jumped to comment on the data. In the afternoon, Sacha and I were anxious to talk to Miquel Oliver, our PhD student, who for two weeks was taking turns in the control room at the observatory LIGO-Hanford in Washington state. We had to wait to get up!

Sascha Husa

Professor of the Physics Department of the UIB and member of the Board of LIGO

the week before was frenetic as we had to finish two papers in which he had been working the past two months to present the latest edition of the wave pattern of black holes that had been at the center my research for at least a decade.

still had not written two requests for computer time in supercomputing centers in Spain and had to give the next day. I did it for the evening with our new postdoc David Keitel, who had been with fever viruses. We had never worked together, and we were sitting writing two requests at the same time, the study of black holes, and another on the search for pulsars in the LIGO data.

There was no time to attend one of the usual teleconference of our working groups, nor to read the endless chain of emails coming. Applications had taken shape, but needed administrative information from one of our students, Miquel Oliver, who had just left the Hanford Observatory for three months. We could only communicate quickly through Facebook.

Most of the writing was done and went home. I had a few minutes to check the mail. A long string of emails had started around lunchtime, sent by Marco Drago, with a suggestive title: an interesting event in ER8 (engineering period 8, the current trial period, which would become the observation period ).

“prompt was not an injection of hardware was a polite way of saying ‘what the hell is going on here “

Marco created a list of links to websites with sensor data and a preliminary analysis, and ended with a question:” it is not designated as an injection hardware and as we understand it after a quick investigation. Can anyone confirm that it is not an injection of hardware ? “That was a polite way of saying” what the hell is going on here “.

I checked the first figures online. It had to be an injection intentionally blind, or not properly marked (after all, it was a test period). Either that, or a real signal! . A fusion of very massive black holes, clearly visible in the two detectors

Shortly before 20 pm finally arrived Miquel response on the requested administrative information: “Ok, I will send. Have you seen the event today? Give me a few minutes in the email. ” Miquel could not be allowed to say he was really going on, even if I did.

But finally reached a final message at 20:29, and began a new era. It was clear that it was not a normal or blind injection. After checking the data, the team had discovered it was true. Miquel said that this information was strictly confidential

I got up from the couch and walked to the bedroom where my wife Alice, the thesis director Miquel, was reading. “We have the first screening, I talked to Miquel , it is real. It is still confidential, nothing in email lists. We can talk to him on Skype. ” We had no idea what was coming the next few months, but it was clear that there would sleep long before Christmas.

Miquel Oliver Alimiñana

PhD student at the UIB and member of LIGO

the experience of doing an external collaboration in the LIGO Hanford Observatory during the period in which the first gravitational wave was detected in history was amazing and, to be honest, is very difficult to explain.

the day of the event I woke up with my companions, who also made a stay there as partners due to the incessant barrage of emails, we were all extremely intrigued to understand what was happening. He could have begun phase out artificial signal injection observation period?

And the answer came unexpectedly. Upon arrival to the observatory, Jeff Kissel published highlighting a record that was not an injection signal, as this showed no sign of the channels on which these procedures occur. From the time we hit by a tsunami of questions and more questions, which was mixed with a feeling of euphoria that pervaded all that we were there.

” the first gravitational wave in history was amazing, very difficult to explain “

a few hours later I asked Michael Landry, my tutor at the observatory, if I could communicate Skype with Alicia Sintes, my thesis supervisor, to exchange views on what was going on.

the first thing Alicia wanted to know was what my feeling to be in the observatory, I replied immediately that the uncertainty about what had happened was in every one of which we were there, but the general view was that this case was not a signal injection but something amazing happened.

Over the days growing optimism silently at the observatory. Everyone was nervous because it was hard to believe what just happened, but every day the impossibility of finding another explanation was inevitable to think that indeed, gravitational waves have been detected for the first time, who had made history and a new era began from that time.

Xisco Forteza

PhD student of the UIB and member of LIGO

everything began that September 14, 2015, when it became possible unlikely. In my case that Monday went normally. Unaware that a collision of two black holes about 1.47 billion light-years away had been a tiny chink in our detectors, which would become the greatest scientific earthquake physics of gravitational waves. Since we had them here!

What I do remember is that the next morning, one of my thesis advisers, Sascha Husa, I called his office via email. Nothing seemed strange, an email more work to discuss my thesis on modeling models of gravitational waves. However, although the first thing we tried were technical issues related to my project, I remember his words were: ‘And now, look at this’

<. p> “it was what we so often simulated and represented in our models”

in the screen showed me a graph came detector Hanford, who had never seen and did not required more visual explanation. It was the evolution and growth of the frequency at the time of gravitational waves reaching its peak in the collision or merger . It was that which had so often simulated and represented as theoretical models in our computers, now seen as a real signal in the detector.

The hard years of work in the numerical simulation of binary black holes, treatment waves and model building which now have to adapt to the new information-, bore fruit just as the first vibrating detectors thanks to a real signal for the first time clearly exceeded the noise values.

it is beginning an exciting and vibrant stage of observations which we hope to better understand the major cataclysms produced in the farthest reaches of the universe. The group of UIB, from the beautiful little town of Palma, continue expectant to decipher each gravitational symphony that the cosmos we want to send.