Gravitational Waves and Cosmology
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The detection of GWs some years ago, opened a new window to the Universe. Using GWs signals we can study various aspects of fundamental cosmology and test GR in unexplored phenomena. During this project, we study the effects of large scale structures in the universe to the waveforms of GWs, both analytically and by using state-of-the-art cosmological simulations. This can result in a better understanding of our detected signals, but also potentially give us useful information about the matter anisotropies in the universe.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Sadegh Khochfar (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Marios Kalomenopoulos (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST/P006809/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2024 | |||
| 2145980 | Studentship | ST/P006809/1 | 01/09/2018 | 31/08/2022 | Marios Kalomenopoulos |
| Description | Some of the main findings so far: - We investigated how matter inhomogeneities in the universe, i.e. structures like galaxies or cluster of galaxies, affect the propagation of gravitational waves in a realistic environment taken from cosmological simulations. We showed how someone can use gravitational wave information to probe these inhomogeneities, and how the latter could give similar signals to some theories that try to modify the General Theory of Relativity, our standard theory of gravity. - We investigated how gravitational waves can be used to infer the Hubble constant, i.e. how fast the universe is expanding, even in the cases where the exact source of the gravitational wave is not known. This is an important question of modern cosmology and gravitational waves could offer a way out of the current (problematic) situation, where different observations, give different resutls. - We investigated further multimessenger applications connected to GW, and more specifically how we can use Fast-Radio Burst, which are of unknown origin, but have a quite-well specified signal, to probe some long-wavelegth GWs. |
| Exploitation Route | The research outcomes are, or will become, publicly available and researchers in the relevant fields could use them to further investigate the universe |
| Sectors | Education |
| Description | Activities in popular science (talks, engaging results with the public, etc) |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |