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Irish researcher joins €1.7bn hunt for Einstein's ‘ripples in space-time'
This work is part of the European Space Agency's €1.74bn Lisa (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission to deploy the first gravitational wave detector in space to detect the ripples.
Gravitational waves have opened up a new way of observing the universe, according to said Barry Wardell, associate professor of mathematics and statistics at UCD.
Prof Wardell has been awarded a €2.5m Advanced European Research Council Grant to study gravitational waves within the Lisa mission.
Until recently, scientists' understanding of the universe came mostly from light – in its visible, radio or X-ray forms.
The problem with relying on this, according to Prof Wardell, is that light cannot access all regions of space, especially near black holes, or the moments right after the Big Bang.
'Gravitational waves, by contrast, travel virtually untouched across the cosmos, carrying information about the most extreme, energetic events in existence,' he said. 'This lets us peer into environments we could never reach with telescopes alone.'
By operating in space, the Lisa detector will be far away from all possible interfering 'noise' on Earth.
'We will be able to 'hear' signals from some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, including black holes the size of our Sun spiralling into supermassive black holes millions of times larger,' Prof Wardell said.
For almost 100 years, scientists could only assume that gravitational waves existed, without having observed them directly, relying on Einstein's theories.
They were first detected in 2015 in a dramatic discovery that led to the three researchers responsible together receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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Studying gravitational waves can help scientists answer questions like how galaxies and black holes form and develop over time.
Prof Wardell will be working as part of an international network of scientists.
'What was the universe like in its earliest moments, before light could even travel freely?' he said. 'Gravitational waves are like messengers from those inaccessible corners of time and space.'
Getting answers is a highly complex challenge that requires the use of advanced mathematics, supercomputers, and AI.
'While Einstein's predictions have held up for over a century, we've never been able to probe them in environments like merging black holes before,' Prof Wardell said.
'Gravitational wave detections could eventually reveal where his theory breaks down, pointing us toward new physics that might unify gravity with quantum mechanics – one of the biggest unsolved problems in science.'
Yet how is all this relevant to our earthbound lives?
'Gravitational waves might sound far removed from everyday life,' Prof Wardell said. 'But even for ordinary people, they matter more than it first seems.
'This is a story of curiosity: our drive to understand where we come from, how the universe works, and what fundamental forces shape our reality.'
