Gravitational Waves Fun

Organization and Support

This series of lectures is organized by Mihai Bondarescu (Caltech) and Ruxandra Bondarescu (Cornell) with help from Greg Daues,  Ravi Kopparapu (LSU), Prof. Sanichiro Yoshida (SELU), Tiffany Findley (SELU) and others. We are supported and partially sponsored by LSU CAPITAL - Ed Seidel and Gabrielle Allen and by The Center for Gravitational Waves Astronomy from The  University of Texas at Brownsville.  We also thank Willian Scullin from LSU CAPITAL for going out of his way a lot more than he had to in order to help us. 

Contact info

Mihai - Cell 626-644-1391 or mihai at tapir.caltech.edu
Ruxandra-  Cell 607-351-4871 or ruxandra at ncsa.uiuc.edu
Ravi-  kravi at paris.phys.lsu.edu.
Ravi has a copy of all the DVDs in Ph237 and will lend it to all interested students. (Sponsored by Mihai and LSU CAPITAL)

Note: The University will be closed between Dec 23rd and January 5th. So, when you arrive at the Frey Computing Center please give us a call on either cell phone to open the door.

Short description

This series of lectures is based on Kip Thorne's PH237 - Gravitational Waves. I plan to go over some of the material with interested students. I will try to cover the basics of General Relativity as well as advanced topics in Gravitational Wave Astronomy, GW detectors (LIGO, LISA) and the numerical work needed to make them work. Since it is winter holiday I will try to keep prerequisites down and find some fun stuff to do after each meeting that will give us the chance to talk informally and get to know each other better. Right now I consider things from beer at the local bar to a beach trip or a visit to LIGO but you know the city and may come up with better ideas.

When & Where:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11AM at the 3rd Floor of the Frey Computing Center.  For Directions and more info go to

http://www.lsu.edu/campus/locations/CSC.html

We plan on having a meeting each Monday, Wednesday and Friday until January 14. Needless to say, I expect people to skip classes and therefore will do my best to make each lecture as self-contained as possible.

We look forward to seeing you all!
Mihai and Ruxandra

Note: I am leaving on January 5 and Ruxandra will organize the rest of the lectures untill January 14.

Participants

Honorary Guests

Lecture room on December 24 - Christmas Eve

Program

Trip to LIGO in the evening (Organized by Dr. Yoshida and Tiffani) January 2nd    6-8:50 PM
LIGO data - unstable lock Mario and Mihai in front one of the LIGO arms
Ravi holding one of the LIGO mirrors Mihai the beaver
Tiffany, Ruxandra, Dr. Yosida, Mario, Ravi and his wife Ruxandra and Mihai doing experimental physics