WAVE OF PRAISE
U of T researchers part of team that contributed to Nobel Prize-winning physics research,
University of Toronto researchers were part of the large team that contributed to the work done by three U.S.-based professors who were awarded the Nobel Physics Prize for their detection of gravitational waves, a theory first put forward by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago.
The three scientists won the prize on Tuesday for detecting the faint ripples flying through the universe.
U of T astrophysics professor Harald Pfeiffer and several students helped the team discover that the collision of two black holes caused the waves.
“It’s great to be part of a team doing such good research,” Pfeiffer said in a telephone interview from his family home in Germany.
Pfeiffer and his team were among about 1,000 scientists in more than 20 countries who collaborated on the project that was about 50 years in the making.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that awards Nobel Prizes said the detection of the waves promises a revolution in astrophysics.
Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology won the 2017 prize for a combination of highly advanced theory and ingenious equipment design, the academy announced.
Gravitational waves are “perturbations in space and time itself that travel at the speed of light,” Pfeiffer explained.
These waves can be created in a variety of ways, Pfeiffer said, although the collision of two black holes or two neutron stars are “the best sources for gravitational waves.”
The waves were predicted by Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity, which states that gravity is caused by heavy objects bending space-time, which itself is the four-dimensional way that astronomers see the universe.
Weiss, in the 1970s, designed a laser-based device that would detect gravitational waves.
He, Thorne and Barish “ensured that four decades of effort led to gravitational waves finally being observed,” the Nobel announcement said.
The laser device, called an interferometer, must be both exquisitely precise and extremely stable.
The first detection of gravitational waves involved two of the devices about 3,000 kilometres apart — in Hanford, Wash., and Livingston, La. The wave first passed the Livingston facility and 7 milliseconds later at Hanford, consistent with the speed of light.
Pfeiffer said when one of these gravitational waves passes through Earth, the diameter of Earth changes by roughly the size of a proton.
Pfeiffer’s contribution to the project involved computer calculations of colliding black holes. His work helped predict the waveforms the detector should be looking for, he said.
Pfeiffer says he is celebrating with his family Tuesday night in Germany, but will get back to work Wednesday as the team hunts for more gravitational waves.