-> ,validPeriod= discovered gravitational waves. Their existence was first suggested by Albert Einstein. (Fig. LIGO / NASA) 3 -> gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein in his work from 1916, exactly 100 years ago. But despite the fact that so far the predictions of general relativity fulfilled to the letter, the gravitational waves failed to register directly. Researchers found only indirect evidence that they exist. In 1974. Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discovered a pulsar (a spinning neutron star) that staggers tight circle around another star. With Einstein's theory suggested that such a system should send gravitational waves and thereby slowly lose energy. And indeed, it turned out that orbit the pulsar tightens over time, minimum - approx. 3.5 m per year, but exactly as it provides the theory of relativity. The researchers got the Nobel Prize for it. Same waves but not discovered until today. Gravitational waves were recorded on September 14 by two American LIGO detectors - in Washington and Louisiana. The signal for several months checking team of several hundred scientists from all over the world, among them the Polish physicists, who form a group Polgraw. Nine of them are signed by the announcement of the discovery, which appears in the journal "Physical Review Letters". a member of the Polish group of scientists Polgraw, which participates in a joint US-European experiment LIGO-Virgo, a professor at the Center for Astronomical them. Nicolaus Copernicus in Warsaw PETER Cieśliński: Over a billion light-years away, two black holes merged into one, causing gravitational waves, which on September 14 last he reached the Earth. PROF. MICHAŁ Bejger: This is the biggest explosion, which we recorded in history. Cataclysm greater than supernovae or gamma-ray bursts. We thought even that is converted to tons of TNT, as it is done, describing the explosions of hydrogen bombs, but it would be a gigantic number, anyway impossible to capture the imagination. In a split second merging black holes emitted a lot more energy than the same time wyświeciły total of all the stars in the cosmos. So it was an explosion brighter than the entire universe. But of course no one noticed because gravitational waves can not see! - we are not aware of their existence, as we do not see and do not sense neutrinos, subatomic particles that billions every second pierce our bodies. Gravitational waves are even more elusive, because there are wrinkles that spread in the tissue space-time itself. Detectors LIGO and European Virgo is a new sense, so that for the first time will be able to register them. About the fact that something is brewing, he reported on Twitter now a few months ago Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at the University of Arizona, but you only now formally communicate. - We do not know how he found out. We force a close secret. Besides, no one dug, we did not think of it. I had the impression that the whole wielosetosobowa cooperation included a higher gear, because checking the signal and analysis of information, which carries it incredible amount of work. This data will generally look almost like the sound, you need it using sophisticated statistics to extract information. We were incredibly lucky that the signal was strong, appeared shortly after launch two LIGO detectors and just nothing going on in their area. No earthquakes, interference that could cause any truck jumping on some bumpy few kilometers away from the detector. Who first noticed the signal? - There is always a team on duty. Automatic programs on a regular basis and analyze the state of the detector within a minute give know if something happens. Other members of the team get mail alert. Do you immediately knew where these waves? - Yes, because the signal from the coalesced binary system has a distinctive shape with increasing frequency and amplitude. We call it "ćwierkiem" because if he was to play in the waves of sound, it reminds voice I spend some birds. LIGO records gravitational waves with a frequency of about 30 Hz to thousands Hertz. It's actually more or less the range of frequencies of acoustic waves audible to humans. - that's why I really like to think about it in such a way that it is not a new way of watching, but listening to the universe. Antennas LIGO and Virgo are our ears, so that the waves of gravity. You have heard this "tweet" what next? - First of all, check to see if the same signal appeared in the two detectors at the same time, but of course with the appropriate delay. Gravity wave took 7 milliseconds to overcome the distance that separates them. - This is the next stage excludes various sources of interference, which might be confused with the signal from space. Detectors have a lot of seismic sensors, magnetic and even microphones, because the low-flying planes also induce vibrations, which engage with the detector. It works so hundreds of different channels in which is stored the state of the environment and the detector. Once you know that it is not interference? - Then it gets large, decent statistical analysis. Adjusts the received signal to the different models and scenarios that result from analytical calculations and numerical simulations. It already requires a lot of computing power, the use of clusters, and lasts a little. All possibilities should be taken into account. And what picture has emerged finally from this analysis? - that, no one has yet seen. Two black holes with masses of 36 and 29 solar masses merged into one with a mass of 62 solar masses. Everything took 0.12 seconds, and it happened 400 Megaparsecs from Earth. The signal can see three stages of their confluence. First "tweet", the last few orbits before the merger, when both black holes spiral fall on each other (so-called. Inspiral). As they approach the frequency emitted gravitational waves grew. When touched, was the most interesting, because then formed a common horizon. This stage is called the confluence (merger). Form one black hole, but asymmetrical, deformed, dynamic, which for a while bulging before wypromieniowała excess energy and has adopted the so-called symmetrical form. Kerr holes. This last stage is called the English ringdown, because the black hole like a struck bell, which for some time vibrates and resonates before it stops. This finding unusual and fascinating, opens a new field to observe phenomena that were previously beyond our reach. How to open a new window to the cosmos? - Something even more. It's confirmation that there is a space-time and dynamically changing. It is not - as in Newton - fixed and inviolable stage where only play out different phenomena. Sam is involved in what is happening. Einstein was right again - spacetime may interact with massive objects. In theory, Newton's two rotating around each body form a system fixed and unchangeable. According to Einstein is still time and space, which receives energy and participates in the phenomenon, there is always a ménage a trois. For the first time we found out about it directly, registering propagated in the waves. Besides the first observation of merging black holes and the first direct observation of a vibrating horizon. That no one has seen before. Never before or not detected the two holes, we were never witnessed their connection. We were not even sure if this ever happens. Is there anything you surprised at this discovery? - the mass of the black holes. They are more massive than those that we have found so far in our neighborhood. This means that somewhere far away there are other conditions, form a slightly different stars, which are born more black holes than the ones that we know from our own galaxy. the next time you get a signal? - we do not know. It was never known. Only LIGO and Virgo answer the question, how often formed systems of black holes and how often merge. How does this impact on the population of stars, for star forming regions, how can such black holes and neutron stars. It was the biggest uncertainty throughout the experiment. Many feared that these events are so rare, and our detectors include too narrow slice of the cosmos that we will be in vain for years to wait for the signal. We had three predictions - pessimistic, realistic and optimistic. It seems that it meets the latter scenario. It's far only one type of signal. Everyone is now waiting for the waves excited by the supernova explosion or merging neutron stars. We will be able to check whether the latter are the source of mysterious short gamma-ray bursts. By the way, we will explore what is inside them. Neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe, the more dense than atomic nuclei. They weigh as much as the Sun, and have a size of about Warsaw. It is known that are made up of neutrons, but are not limited to, as would be unstable. There is also a bit of protons, electrons and muons, but in their depths prevail such density that the terrestrial laboratories can not see what place there reactions and phase transitions and what is happening there. According to some hypotheses may appear new exotic particles. It is also revealed in the waves of space-time? - Shortly after the neutron stars will merge together into one object, it will be briefly flickered, and the way these vibrations show us the characteristics of the substance that fills the interior. According to some hypotheses nuclei such stars are composed of quarks themselves. These would be called. star Hybrid - outside the ordinary matter, protons and neutrons, and the center filled with quarks. Maybe there produce particles with non-zero strangeness, so-called. hyperons. - In half a year will run as amended European Virgo detector and with the CME will create three antennas, allowing on the basis of triangulation to determine the place in the sky where the waves are coming. You will be able to direct where space telescopes and ground, to see if the waves of gravity is not accompanied by a flash of light waves or hard radiation. A Japanese build their detector - called Kagra - in the same place as the neutrino detector , or in the mine Kamioka. If it happens to supernova, both see the neutrinos from the explosion, and raised her gravitational waves. Depending on which of them will come before, this will test some hypotheses about the invariance of the speed of light. In the design phase is also a large European underground detector in the shape of a triangle with 10-kilometer arms, Einstein Telescope. He would be able to register merging black holes and neutron stars in the whole visible universe, to the furthest horizon. Polish scientists are trying to make was placed in the tunnels one of our inactive mine, because he must be at least 100 meters below the surface, to cut it off from the shock of ground and overhead. If that happened, it would be a great opportunity for our scientists, but also for innovation and industry, because such a device is a true training ground for new technology. In the future, when we construct detectors recording the waves with lower frequencies, we will they could even hear the echo of the events that unfolded just after the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe. But now this area of research is fascinating. Every day, when the detectors still work (upgradeable are now before the next campaign observation), immediately after waking up I checked, there are no new signal, a candidate for the new discovery. Surely, however, the data that we already have, respectively, well combed reveal different points of interest. And when you receive a signal that will not fit into anything? - It would be most interesting - something that previously no one thought outside the list of sources that have been provided. A new window with the observation, when we look into the dark abyss, it always discovers the unknown. It also waiting. How does the detector LIGO? Detektor Virgo near Pisa, and the American Ligo, located in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston can Louisiana is called. interferometric observatories, whose job is to measure the amplitude of the gravity wave. Each of these observatories is composed of two perpendicular arms with a length of several kilometers (LIGO - 4 km, Virgo - 3 km). Passing gravitational wave in one direction compresses space and in the second state - extends. Therefore, one of the arms extend relative to the other. Registration wave is thus a precise measurement of the relative lengths of both arms, and this is done by using a laser beam, and the interferometer. The light beam from the laser is split into two parts. Each goes to the other arm, where for some time dozens of times traverses back and forth the entire length (bouncing off the mirrors). At the end of the two beams they meet again. They have exactly the same frequency, but the separation of the phase was changed to the opposite. Thus, if in the course of his journey defeated the same way, it will also meet in counter, which means that they were to suppress. Screen Control - light-sensitive matrix - will remain dark. However, if the path beaten by one of the beams will be different, which means that it has changed the relative length of arms, the interference pattern will be different - will spot light. From the light curve can read the frequency and amplitude of the wave, which deformed arms detector. LIGO measures the difference in leg length the order of one-thousandth the size of a proton. The testing phase, which was to show that the project is technologically possible, it lasted for LIGO from 2002 to 2010., and Virgo - from 2007 to 2011. Then detectors have been switched off and rebuilt. LIGO started work back in September last year, once successful, Virgo join the observation this year. After the modernization in recent years, their sensitivity allows them to register waves excited by merging neutron stars within 70 megaparsecs from Earth or large black holes - within a radius of 1 gigaparseka. During the summer the subsequent improvements look 1.5 times further into space. Are these waves can be dangerous? Those who are now registered, come from so far away that no one is threatened, despite the fact that their energy was enormous. the wave propagates spherically in each direction and its energy is distributed over the growing surface sphere. After roamed over 1.3 billion light-years across its amplitude was already low - has changed the arms czterokilometrowych LIGO interferometers barely one-thousandth the diameter of an atom. If black holes merged somewhere in our vicinity, the situation could be grim, however. The transition wave of large amplitude would mean severe changes in local gravity, could disrupt the orbital motion of the planets around the Sun, the Moon and artificial satellites around the Earth. But fortunately, in near-Earth does not have such systems. Subscribe to digital Electoral available through the internet, phone, tablet and eReader from 19.90 per month To assess Login or zarejestrujX
Interview with prof. Michael Bejger 
Why so much look for?
fascinating 
senapczyk
Polgraw? A typical fantasy Made in Poland. Budpol, Polbud, Torpol and a half, Drukpol, Poldruk ... etc. Now we are waiting for Grawpol.