Fast-spinning black holes narrow the search for dark matter particles

Certain ultralight bosons would be expected to put the brakes on black holes, but new results show no such slowdown.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office • mit
April 14, 2021 ~7 min

A technique to sift out the universe’s first gravitational waves

Identifying primordial ripples would be key to understanding the conditions of the early universe.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office • mit
Dec. 9, 2020 ~8 min


3 Questions: Hsin-Yu Chen on treading lightly when dating the universe

MIT postdoc finds the angle at which we view neutron star collisions could significantly impact age measurements.

Kelso Harper | MIT Kavli Institute • mit
Nov. 13, 2020 ~6 min

Designing new mirror materials for better gravitational-wave detection

Nicholas Demos, a first-generation college graduate and MathWorks Fellow in MIT’s Kavli Institute, is improving our ability to listen to the cosmos.

Kelso Harper | MIT Kavli Institute • mit
Oct. 28, 2020 ~7 min

Provably exact artificial intelligence for nuclear and particle physics

MIT-led team uses AI and machine learning to explore fundamental forces.

Sandi Miller | Department of Physics • mit
Sept. 24, 2020 ~7 min

An unexpected origin story for a lopsided black hole merger

Researchers suggest a novel process to explain the collision of a large black hole and a much smaller one.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office • mit
Sept. 2, 2020 ~8 min

A “bang” in LIGO and Virgo detectors signals most massive gravitational-wave source yet

A binary black hole merger likely produced gravitational waves equal to the energy of eight suns.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office • mit
Sept. 2, 2020 ~10 min

Gravitational waves: astronomers spot a black hole so massive they weren't sure it could exist

New discovery settles a wager between astrophysicists: black holes can merge repeatedly.

Ilya Mandel, Honorary Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Birmingham • conversation
Sept. 2, 2020 ~7 min


Are we still listening to space?

Despite the planet’s seeming standstill, graduate students continue to use LIGO to identify astrophysical events.

Fernanda Ferreira | School of Science • mit
Aug. 19, 2020 ~7 min

Portable system boosts laser precision, at room temperature

“Light squeezer” reduces quantum noise in lasers, could enhance quantum computing and gravitational-wave detection.

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office • mit
July 7, 2020 ~8 min

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