Mallorca physicists win prize for gravitational waves

Two physicists at the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma have won a national prize for making gravitational waves easier to understand. Josep Blai Covas Vidal and David Keitel received the award from the Royal Spanish Society of Physics and the BBVA Foundation on 17 September.

Their article, Gravitational waves: 10 years after the first direct detection, won the Best Public Engagement Contribution prize at the XIX Physics Awards. Published in the Revista Española de Física, it sets out the physics behind gravitational waves, the technology used to detect them and the field’s development over time.

The jury praised the article’s quality, rigour and clarity. It also highlighted its account of the challenges involved in experimental detection and of the techniques that have improved the sensitivity of measurements.

Covas Vidal and Keitel teach in the UIB’s Department of Physics and belong to its Gravitational Physics: Theory and Observation research group at the Institute of Community Code Applications. They are also part of the UIB team working with major international gravitational-wave projects, including the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the LISA space mission and the Einstein Telescope.

The University of the Balearic Islands says gravitational-wave research has opened up the study of the most massive known objects and changed how scientists explore the universe.

Topics: Culture

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com