Dr. David Keitel – Gravitational-wave astronomy: the first decade and beyond

Ten years ago, the gravitational-wave window onto the Universe was opened with the first detection of merging black holes. Since then, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration have found hundreds of high-significance signals from compact binary coalescences. These have enabled many new insights into the astrophysics of compact objects and the evolutionary history of massive stars, and are a completely novel probe for cosmology and fundamental physics.

With further upgrades to the current detector network and the advent of next-generation observatories, such as the European underground Einstein Telescope and the LISA space mission, we will be able to reach even deeper into our Universe’s population of merging compact objects. We are also still hunting for many more types of astrophysical gravitational-wave sources that require new detection methods and offer new scientific potentials. Last but not least, our observatories also serve as sensitive dark matter detectors.