Sarah Vigeland, assistant professor of physics, welcomes the crowd gathered to watch a livestreamed announcement of major research news from the NANOGrav Collaboration, a U.S./Canada project to find low-frequency gravitational waves coming from other galaxies. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
UWM Provost Andrew Daire (right), accompanied by physics Professor David Kaplan, meets some of the students attending the celebration in the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Kaplan is the first to cut the cake at the celebration on June 29, while Assistant Professor Sarah Vigeland looks on. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
The green cake is decorated to show a graphic “signature” that NANOGrav has found that is likely evidence for low-frequency gravitational wave background across the universe. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Kaplan and Vigeland lead UWM’s NANOGrav research team. UWM was one of the original members of this Physics Frontier Center, funded by the National Science Foundation. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
The UWM research team working on NANOGrav, the search for low-frequency gravitational waves with pulsars, is: (back row from left) Gabriella Agazie, Tonia Klein, Assistant Professor Sarah Vigeland and Megan Jones; (middle row from left) Professor David Kaplan and Nihan Pol; (front row from left) Shashwat Sardesai, Gabiel Freedman, Alex McEwen and Joseph Swiggum. Not pictured is Abhimanyu Susobhanan. UWM has been involved in NANOGrav since 2007. (UWM Photo/Troye Fox)
Artist’s interpretation of an array of pulsars being affected by gravitational ripples produced by a supermassive black hole binary in a distant galaxy. (Illustration by Aurore Simonet for the NANOGrav Collaboration)
UWM physics students, faculty and guests gathered Thursday at the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex to watch a livestream announcing a breakthrough discovery in part by UWM scientists.
The discovery, which made national news, was compelling evidence that a signal has been found for low-frequency gravitational waves that collectively generate a “background hum” across the universe. The discovery was made by a collaboration of scientists in the U.S. and Canada called the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. UWM has been a member of NANOGrav since its inception in 2007.
This is the second time that UWM has had a role in the breakthrough science of gravitational waves.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” said Gabriella Agazie, who is part of UWM’s research team. “It will eventually tell us a lot of cool stuff about the universe that we don’t yet know.”
