Travel Support for Workshop on Gravitational Wave Tests of Alternative Theories of Gravity in the Advanced Detector Era at Montana State University April 5-7, 2013

Montana State University, Bozeman MT

Investigators

Abstract

The Scientific Workshop supported by this award will be focused on creative and potentially transformative research, constituting the first dedicated effort to test Einstein's theory with gravitational waves. This is an essential step to exploit the full potential of gravitational wave detection. This type of research is also timely and relevant, in view of upcoming, advanced detectors and the dawn of gravitational wave astrophysics. The objectives delineated above align perfectly with the Principal Investigator Yunes' long-term goals, who has years of experience building up to this objective. The impact of gravitational waves signaling a systematic departure from Einstein's predictions is clearly breathtaking. But the lack of a departure from Einstein's theory would also constitute a huge step for Science, proving for once and for all that Einstein's theory is also valid in the most extreme gravitational scenarios. Gravitational wave astrophysics is entering a new era of discovery and exploration, with first detections expected within the next few years with Advanced LIGO, the ground-based interferometer in the United States. One of the key missions of LIGO is to test Einstein's theory of General Relativity where it has never been tested before: where the gravitational force is enormous relative to Earth's or the Sun's pull. Such a task is achievable because gravitational waves encode information about this force when black holes and neutron stars collide in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. The main objective of this award is to fund a scientific workshop that will bring together experts in gravitational wave theory and data analysis, together with experts in modified gravity theories, to discuss how the discovery of gravitational waves can be leveraged to learn more about Einstein's theory. This event is part of a broader outreach initiative, called "Celebrating Einstein", to be held in Bozeman Montana in April 2013.