Chiara Mingarelli is a gravitational-wave astrophysicist and a professor in the Department of Physics at Yale University. She studies supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies and their mergers using data about gravitational waves that are detected by pulsar timing array experiments. In this episode, Robinson and Chiara discuss PTAs, gravitational waves, black holes, how and why they merge, and the fresh release of NANOgrav’s fifteen-year data set, which gives the first ever evidence of a gravitational wave background in the universe, an unprecedented discovery that marks the dawn of a new era of astrophysical research.
Chiara’s Website: https://www.chiaramingarelli.com/
Chiara’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dr_CMingarelli
OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode...
00:30 Introduction
02:58 Chiara’s Interest in Black Holes
10:25 What Are Gravitational Waves
15:47 Detecting Gravitational Waves
31:39 How to Visualize Black Holes
40:55 Black Holes and Gravitational Waves
48:51 Two Different Backgrounds
53:46 Collecting and Interpreting Data
56:36 Why Do Black Holes Anchor Galaxies?
58:34 Why Do Black Holes Form Binaries?
01:04:25 Lingering Questions
01:11:33 Cosmic Strings
01:17:35 NANOgrav’s Data Release and the Gravitational Wave Background
Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com
Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.