November 1 - 2, 2011, Pune, India

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in collaboration with IndIGO is organizing a joint workshop on gravitational waves. The meeting will be held at the Inter University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune during November 1-2, 2011. The meeting is supported by the Embassy of Italy in New Delhi and IUCAA, Pune.

The European Gravitational-wave Observatory has several openings for young engineers/scientists working in Control Theory, Optical simulations, Optics, Vacuum Technologies, Electronics, Computing and Mechanics in connection with the construction of the Advanced Virgo observatory.

• Contact: Federico Ferrini (federico.ferrini at ego-gw.it), Bala Iyer (bri at rri.res.in).
• Marie Curie international incoming fellowships for young scientists.

Seven Indian institutions have proposed joining the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory — a US-Australian effort to build an advanced gravitational-wave detector. The Indian scientists would help to commission the facility during 2011-2017 and contribute equipment for LIGO-Australia's sub-systems such as ultrahigh-vacuum components for the detectors. The proposal is currently being evaluated by both the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Atomic Energy for approval... Download "Physics World" news

Time is running out for an Indo-Australian plan to join the US Laser Inferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) network. The detector, to be installed at Gingin in Western Australia, is scheduled to begin collecting data in 2017 — but only if the two countries can commit the required funding by October 2011... Nature News

Despite the fact that astronomers cannot peer at what goes on inside the black hole, a black hole's gravitational effects on its neighborhood allow for a number of indirect observations. Swirls of infalling gas heat up and give off radiation to illuminate a black hole's vicinity, and the orbits of stars around a black hole allow astronomers to estimate its mass. Now researchers have proposed a new optical technique to observe and study black holes by measuring the imprint they should leave on the light that passes near an event horizon.

• Report in Scientific American
• Nature Physics Article
• Commentary by Martin Bojowald

Feb 8 - 10, 2011, New Delhi, India

The IndIGO Consortium is organizing a meeting (supported under AISTF project DST/INT/AUS/P-26/2009) of the Indo-Australian collaboration and scientists from American LIGO during Feb 8-10, 2011 in Delhi. This meeting is a crucial step to bring together the key Australian, American and Indian collaborators to discuss the possibilities and plan for the logistics of the Indian participation in the planned LIGO-Australia project, and leading on towards building significant Indian presence in gravitational-wave Astronomy over the next decade.

Deccan Herald Article

13 - 24 December 2010
University of Delhi

A team of researchers from Japan and Germany have proposed a new way to detect gravitational waves in the frequency band 1 mHz to 1Hz. The principle of this new "torsion-bar antenna" (TOBA) is that, when gravitational waves pass through this antenna, tidal forces by the gravitational waves will appear as differential angular changes in the two orthogonal bars constituting the antenna. These changes are extracted using a laser interferometer. The authors argue that the potential sensitivity of this antenna is superior to those of current detectors in a 1 mHz-10 Hz frequency band.

Further reading:

• Physical Review Letters article.
• "Cheap and cheerful gravity wave detector on the horizon", News item in ARS technica

Three decades of radio observations of the binary pulsar PSR B1913+16 continue to show that the nature of gravitational waves is very much like that predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity! The system's orbital period has been decreasing at a rate 0.997� 0.002 times that predicted by General Relativity due to gravitational radiation damping. This provides one of the most accurate experimental evidence of the validity of General Relativity.

Further reading:
ApJ Article (astro-ph)