Jess McIver
35 new gravitational wave observations bring researchers closer to uncovering the secrets of how stars live and die
A global team of scientists, including researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), have detected thirty-five new gravitational wave events, including colliding black holes and neutron stars. The new events, detailed in today’s paper, bring the total number of observed events to 90 since the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015. Gravitational waves are […]
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA finds elusive mergers of black holes with neutron stars
For the first time, researchers have confirmed the detection of a collision between a black hole and a neutron star. In fact, the scientists – including those at the University of British Columbia – detected not one but two such events occurring just ten days apart in January 2020. The extreme events made splashes in […]
UBC LIGO researchers receive federal funding to support breakthrough & interdisciplinary research
UBC Physics & Astronomy researchers, including UBC LIGO team members Jess McIver, Joerg Rottler, and Jeff Young, have been awarded the federal New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) 2020 Exploration Stream. This funding, each in the amount of $250K, will support high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research. The two UBC LIGO projects are among the 7 […]
Scientists detect 39 new gravitational wave events
(via UBC News) The LIGO-Virgo Collaboration, including UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy researchers, has confirmed 39 new gravitational wave event detections, more than quadrupling the total known gravitational wave events from 11 to 50. The results, published in four papers on arXiv, and soon to appear in Physical Review X and other journals, were […]
The most massive black hole merger detected
An international team of researchers, including scientists in the UBC LIGO group, has detected a signal from the most massive black hole merger yet observed. The discovery, outlined in papers published today in Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal, raises a slew of new questions about the nature of black-hole formation, and upends previously […]
Discovery of the heaviest neutron star, or lightest black hole, ever observed
An international team of astrophysicists, including researchers at UBC, have detected the ‘extremely loud’ merger of a black hole with a mystery compact object—the most asymmetric gravitational-wave source yet observed. GW190814, the merger of a heavy black hole with an unidentified compact object about nine times smaller, was reported today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. When […]
UBC researchers visit LIGO Livingston
UBC researchers Jess McIver, Evan Goetz, and student Katie Rink visited the LIGO-Livingston detector in Livingston, Louisiana for the LIGO Detector Characterization meeting and noise sprint in January 2020.
