WVU faculty, students work on groundbreaking research of gravitational waves in space

The gravitational waves — recorded by “cosmic radio clocks” called pulsars — travel at light speed, both stretching physical space and changing the speed of the passing time. Sarah Burke-Spolaor, an assistant professor in WVU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, said that finally finding evidence of this process represents a monumental evolution of how space could be studied in the future.

“Gravitational waves represent a completely fundamentally different type of messenger from the cosmos,” Burke-Spolaor said. “This is as different as looking at x-rays versus optical light. You see completely different things. ... This is really the beginning of an era where we’re going to begin using gravitational waves to explore the universe. It’s as fundamental as those early telescopes were 400 years ago.”

Burke-Spolaor said that this discovery has several implications. She said that the mere existence of the waves means that there are things out there in the universe that the human eye has yet to see in light. Although researchers don’t know what’s exactly causing these background waves right now, she said that it proves that there’s something more in space that humans don’t see or understand, and that’s exciting.

“To me, it really comes down to that, without even getting into the interpretation of what’s causing these things,” Burke-Spolaor said. “This is the first step in understanding and exploring what’s making these waves in space-time.”

She noted that while it’s still just a theory, the current belief is that the majority of these waves are coming from “binary supermassive black holes” somewhere in the universe.

“These things are the biggest, monstrous objects in the universe,” Burke-Spolaor said. ‘They’re like a billion times the mass of the sun going around something that also a billion times the mass of the sun.”

While the source of these waves may be coming from the deep reaches of the universe, Burke-Spolaor said that they should still be important to those still here on Earth. She said that at it’s root, the question is “Why do we need fundamental research?”

She noted that work that figures like Galileo did 400 years ago has been the foundation of more modern inventions like GPS and cell phones and satellite communications, and while the implications of this new research might not be immediately apparent to the people of Earth, it has the ability to be the groundwork for even further technological advancements in society.

“Picture the long-term implication of finding a completely new way of sending information in the universe,” Burke-Spolaor said. “That’s what we’re studying. Those are gravitational waves. They’re a new way to transmit information.”

Beyond that, Burke-Spolaor said that said that it’s human nature to better want to understand our place in the universe, and finding evidence of these waves takes researchers one step closer to that cosmic quest.

“It’s chilling in the best way,” she said. “It’s goosebump-inducing. When you’re working day-to-day, you really don’t think about the big picture all the time, but when you sit back and think of the biggest implications, it gets really exciting. ... It’s been such an amazing experience.”

Information on this discovery has been published in several academic papers by a total of 95 authors, 30 of whom have ties to West Virginia University, either as researchers currently at the institution or as former students and researchers.

Burke-Spolaor said that with West Virginia’s rich history of space exploration in the past, this further research continues The Mountain State’s trend of being instrumental in humans’ understanding of the cosmos.

“I think (WVU) has the biggest concentration of NANOGrav scientists,” Burke-Spolaor said. “That’s allowed WVU to train so many students and attract really high-quality students to come through and engage with the culture here to see what West Virginia is all about, and that’s been wonderful. ...

“We also work with so many undergrads from West Virginia who want to excel in science careers.”

Looking ahead, Burke-Spolaor said that she’s very excited about the next steps. She said that researchers will now begin trying to detect the objects that are popping up against this background “hum” of the recently recorded gravitational waves, and as the team gets more data, it’ll be able to start honing in on those objects and identify where they are, hopefully even capturing them with some powerful telescopes.