General Relativity and Gravitational Waves

Colloquium iTHES Theoretical Science Colloquium Supported by iTHEMS

Date: April 13 (Thu) at 15:00 - 16:30, 2017 (JST)
Speaker: Takahiro Tanaka (Professor, Division of Physics and Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University)
Venue: Okochi Hall
Language: English

The 20th iTHES Theoretical Science Colloquium

A hundred years have passed since general relativity was proposed by A. Einstein. This beautiful theory passed all experimental tests so far but almost always in a week gravity regime where perturbative expansion around flat spacetime gives a good approximation. Recent direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO opened up a new window to test general relativity in a strong gravity regime. At the same time, cosmological observations are getting more and more accurate, which also gives a ground to test the validity of general relativity. I'd like to discuss the progress of this area in the past and what will happen in near future.