2023-11-23 16:52:00
VUB researcher Alba Romero-Rodriguez was awarded a Virgo Award on November 9 from the eponymous international consortium, specializing in the study of gravitational waves, the Brussels university said this Thursday.
The postdoctoral researcher, who works in the Natuurkunde (physics) research group at the VUB Faculty of Science, was awarded for her research into gravitational waves and her contribution to LIGO, a gravitational wave detector.
LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is capable of detecting imperceptible alterations in space-time caused by the passage of gravitational waves. These measurements allow researchers to infer information regarding the origin of the waves and the nature of their source, such as the collision of black holes or neutron stars.
Since its commissioning in 2015, LIGO has already made history several times by detecting gravitational waves, “which made it possible to open a new window on the observation of the universe“, explains the VUB. The researcher contributed “in a concrete way to these feats by refining the precision of the measuring instruments and by characterizing the noise due to ground vibrations, traffic or variations in equipment temperature“.
Belgian -Photo : Belgian / Benoit Doppagne
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