Jess McIver
Jess McIver joins the UBC Blusson Quantum Matter Institute
The UBC Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (UBC Blusson QMI) recently announced that Jess McIver had joined its team of Principal Investigators along with Dr. Olivia Di Matteo in UBC’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Jess McIver is an Associate Professor at UBC’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair […]
UBC hosts Dawn VII meeting
Every 2-3 years, the community of physicists working on ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors holds a discussion-based “Dawn” meeting to plan for the future of the field. This year the global ground-based GW community, including experts in GW detector technology, GW astrophysics, multi-messenger astronomy, cosmology, nuclear physics, and tests of general relativity, is converging in […]
LIGO detectors begin fourth observing run
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration is set to launch a new observing run (O4) with upgraded instruments and other improvements. The two LIGO detectors in the United States will join at the beginning of the run with the Virgo in Europe and the KAGRA in Japan joining later. The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA’s observing plans page feature an overview of […]
Jess McIver appointed Canada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics
PHAS Assistant Professor Dr. Jess McIver, was appointed Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics. Twenty-two UBC researchers were appointed as new and renewed Canada Research Chairs in the latest round of appointments announced on January 12, 2022. The new and renewed UBC chairholders being announced represent an investment of $19.5 million through […]
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 […]
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 […]
The most massive black hole merger detected
An international team of researchers, including scientists with the University of British Columbia’s gravitational wave astrophysics 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 […]
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 gravitational wave astrophysics group participates in the #Strike4BlackLives
The UBC gravitational wave astrophysics group joins the American Physical Society, the AAAS, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the journals Science and Nature, and the arXiv in participating in the strike organized on June 10, 2020. Patrick Brady, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration spokesperson, said of the strike: It’s a call to set aside our usual scholarly […]
UBC GW astrophysics group research continues remotely
The UBC gravitational-wave astrophysics group has been researching remotely since March 16, 2020. Zoom and slack have been invaluable tools to keep us connected with each other and with our colleagues in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, as well as Virgo and KAGRA. Robert Beda, a UBC student studying Mathematical Physics, has remotely joined the group […]
LIGO-Virgo ends third observing run early
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, LIGO and Virgo decided to suspend their third observing run (O3) roughly a month ahead of schedule. The observing run will end on March 27th instead of the original planned end date, April 30, 2020. From a statement released by the LIGO Laboratory on ligo.caltech.edu: In spite of the early […]
Detector characterization at LIGO Livingston
Group members 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. Jess led the meeting, which focused on plans for LIGO detector noise studies and supporting validation of event candidates in the remainder of the current LIGO-Virgo […]
Harmonics in gravitational wave signals observed from collision of black holes for the first time
Astrophysicists including a team at UBC have observed gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes with distinctly different masses, dubbed GW190412. This discovery gives us a glimpse of subtle harmonics in gravitational wave signals for the first time. These harmonics not only allow improved tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, they also allow […]