Physics Colloquium – Shaswat Sardesai

Shashwat Sardesai, PhD Candidate, UWM Physics

Cosmic Orchestra: The Gravitational Wave Background

In the last year and a half, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, and their collaborators, have detected the presence of a gravitational wave background using pulsar timing arrays. These gravitational waves likely arise from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) and have periods spanning years or decades.

In this talk, I will go over the basics of PTAs, the different methods to analyze the background, as well as the projects I have worked on as a member of the NANOGrav collaboration to try and resolve aspects of the GWB.

The event flyer is available here.