Professor C. V. Vishveshwara, who passed away in Bangalore recently, was one of the true pioneers of black hole physics. His notable contributions include the proof of the stability of Schwarzschild black holes and the discovery of quasi-normal modes of black holes.

LIGO Laboratory at California Institute of Technology hosts a 10-week summer student research program every year, called the LIGO SURF Program. In consideration to the upcoming LIGO-India project, LIGO has graciously agreed to host a few talented and motivated undergraduate students from Indian institutions, pre-selected by IndIGO, as part of this program.

Applications are invited for a Max Planck Partner Group Postdoctoral Fellowship at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bangalore. This fellowship is supported by the Max Planck Partner Group in Astrophysical Relativity at ICTS, working in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Hannover.

Advanced LIGO Engineering Team has been awarded the Paul F. Foreman Team Engineering Excellence Award from the Optical Society. This award recognizes technical achievements such as product engineering, process, software and patent development, as well as contributions to society such as engineering education, publication and management, and furthering public appreciation of optical engineering.

Institution: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram, India
Deadline: July 22, 2016
Salary: Rs. 36,000 (first year) – Rs. 38,000 (second year) per month plus 20% House Rent Allowance
Tenure of the post: 1+ 1year (Extension to second year is subject to the performance and availability of funds)

While the celebrations for the first detection of gravitational waves are still ringing down, we are excited to announce the observation of yet another binary black hole merger by LIGO. On December 26, 2015 at 09:09AM IST the LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana detected a signal from the coalescence of two black holes, with masses 14 and 8 times the mass of the sun, merging into a more massive, rapidly rotating black hole that is 21 times the mass of the sun. The event happened 1.4 billion years ago, lasted in LIGO's frequency band for about a second and released about 1 solar mass worth of energy in that short period. For comparison, only a tiny fraction of the sun's mass gets converted to light in its entire lifetime, which is enough to keep the earth warm for billions of years.

25 July - 5 Aug, 2016, ICTS, Bangalore

Applications are now invited for the ICTS Summer School on Gravitational-Wave Astronomy. This summer school is mainly intended for graduate students and postdocs working on gravitational-wave astronomy and related areas, and for highly motivated undergraduate/masters students.

Applications are invited for a Max Planck Prize Postdoctoral Position in Astrophysical Relativity at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), located in Bangalore. This position is supported by the Max Planck Partner Group in Astrophysical Relativity at ICTS, which operates in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. The fellowship is offered broadly in the area of gravitational wave physics and astronomy, including analytical and numerical relativity, and theoretical astrophysics. All applicants will be automatically considered for the regular ICTS postdoc positions also.

The discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO received two major international awards last week — a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the 2016 Gruber Prize in Cosmology.

Applications are invited from researchers with outstanding track record in (a) gravitational wave data analysis or detector characterization, (b) numerical relativity, (c) relativistic astrophysics, or a closely related research area, for postdoctoral Project Scientist positions to begin this summer or fall.