The LIGO Scientific, Virgo, and KAGRA collaboration discovered a spectacular signal during its fourth observing run, dubbed GW230529. The compact binary system that created this signal was likely a neutron star merging with a ‘mass-gap’ black hole; the black hole had a mass greater than the heaviest neutron stars and less than the lightest black holes in the Milky Way. I was fortunate to co-lead the discovery paper on behalf of the collaboration!
New paper with Aditya Vijayjumar and Alex Hanselman.
Black holes merging in the universe emit gravitational waves that we can detect. From these signals, we can tell how heavy the black holes were, how fast they were spinning, and how far away they merged. But there is another aspect of the signals that can be incredibly informing: orbital eccentricity, or how “stretched-out” the orbit is relative to a circular orbit.
I’m very excited to announce that I’ve started a new position as an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. In this role, I’ll be continuing my personal research on gravitational waves, and will maintain my collaborations with Northwestern University and The University of Chicago with visiting scholar appointments.
