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The Advanced LIGO Project, a major upgrade that will increase the sensitivity of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories instruments by a factor of 10 was officially dedicated on May 19.

A $14.5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation will help with the creation and operation of a multi-institution Physics Frontiers Center.

Christian Ott, professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech, formulates scenarios for what happens when massive stars collapse.

Caltech professor of physics Rana Adhikari has been on a singular quest for 15 years: to detect gravitational waves.

David Reitze has been named executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), designed and operated by Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Reitze has also been named a senior research associate at Caltech.

The National Research Council (NRC) has strongly recommended the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) as one of NASA's next two major space missions, to start in 2016 in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). LISA will study the universe in a manner different from any other space observatory, by observing gravitational waves. The recommendation was announced August 13 in a press conference at the Keck Center of the National Academies in Washington, D.C.

An investigation by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration has significantly advanced our understanding of the early evolution of the universe. Analysis of data taken from 2005 to 2007 sets the most stringent limits yet on the amount of gravitational waves that could have come from the Big Bang in the gravitational wave frequency band where LIGO can observe. The results put new constraints on the details of how the universe looked in its earliest moments.

Join two world-renowned California Institute of Technology (Caltech) physicists and an award-winning composer for the world premiere of "Einstein's Cosmic Messengers," an inventive multimedia concert. Inspired by Caltech's involvement with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), the presentation takes an innovative approach to communicating scientific exploration and discovery to the general public. The event takes place Thursday, October 30, at 8 p.m., in Beckman Auditorium on the Caltech campus.

The search for gravitational waves has revealed new information about the core of one of the most famous objects in the sky: the Crab Pulsar in the Crab Nebula. An analysis by the international LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration to be submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters has shown that no more than 4 percent of the energy loss of the pulsar is caused by the emission of gravitational waves.

An analysis by the international LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration has excluded one previously leading explanation for the origin of an intense gamma-ray burst that occurred last winter. Gamma-ray bursts are among the most violent and energetic events in the universe, and scientists have only recently begun to understand their origins.