First observation of gravitational waves

LIGO Detected Gravitational Waves from Black Holes

"On September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC), the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA both measured ripples in the fabric of spacetime – gravitational waves – arriving at the Earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. The new Advanced LIGO detectors had just been brought into operation for their first observing run when the very clear and strong signal was captured.
This discovery comes at the culmination of decades of instrument research and development, through a world-wide effort of thousands of researchers, and made possible by dedicated support for LIGO from the National Science Foundation. It also proves a prediction made 100 years ago by Einstein that gravitational waves exist. More excitingly, it marks the beginning of a new era of gravitational wave astronomy – the possibilities for discovery are as rich and boundless as they have been with light-based astronomy.
This first detection is a spectacular discovery: the gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed."
LIGO Detected Gravitational Waves from Black Holes

• LIGO Press Conference 2016-02-11 Washington, DC
• NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release, February 11, 2016 GRAVITATIONAL WAVES DETECTED 100 YEARS AFTER EINSTEIN’S PREDICTION LIGO Opens New Window on the Universe with Observation of Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes WASHINGTON, DC/Cascina, Italy
• Gravitational Waves, As Einstein Predicted, Chart image
• Abbott B P et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration) "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger" Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 061102 (2016)
• Related papers
• A Brief History of LIGO
• LIGO: The First Observation of Gravitational Waves
• LIGO: Opening a New Window Onto the Universe, February 15, 2016

Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk [Physics-Uspekhi] about gravitational waves

• Lifshitz E M, Khalatnikov I M Problems of relativistic cosmology (1963)
• Ginzburg V L What problems of physics and astrophysics are of special importance and interest at present? (1971)
• Grishchuk L P Gravitational waves in the cosmos and the laboratory (1977)
• Weisberg J. M., Taylor J. H., Fowler L. A. Gravitational Waves from an Orbiting Pulsar (1982)
• Will C M The binary pulsar, gravitational waves, and the Nobel prize (1994)
• Braginskii V B Gravitational-wave astronomy: new methods of measurements (2000)
• Grishchuk L P, Lipunov V M, Postnov K A, Prokhorov M E, Sathyaprakash B S Gravitational wave astronomy: in anticipation of first sources to be detected (2001)
• Braginskii V B Adolescent years of experimental physics (2003)
• Braginskii V B Development of quantum measurement methods (Methodological notes on part of Einstein's scientific legacy) (2005)
• Braginskii V B Gravitational radiation and the prospect of its experimental discovery (1966)
Another papers by V.B. Braginskii, see http://ufn.ru/en/authors/1350/braginskii-vladimir-b/

Other sources

• Hawking: Gravitational Waves Could Revolutionize Astronomy
• Interview with Director of Institute of Applied Physics, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.M. Sergeev
• The discovery of gravitational waves Open public lecture at the Chair of Physics of Oscillations, Department of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University (in Russian)
• Konstantin Postnov and Alexei Semikhatov Science Problem: Do the gravitational waves exist? (in Russian)
• Sergei Popov and Alexei Semikhatov Science Problem: How black holes emit gravitational waves. (in Russian)
• Sergei Popov Lecture for Arche centre (in Russian)
• Alexei Levin Gravitational waves: the way to discovery (in Russian)
• S. Belyaeva It make mankind wiser. It was a dream of initiators of a unique experiment. (in Russian), Poisk No. 7 (2016)

Personalia

• Vladimir B. Braginsky (Department of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia).
  http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/hbar/pages/brag/braginsky.htm
  Памяти Владимира Борисовича Брагинского (Профессор К.С. Торн, Калтех)
  LIGO Mourns the Loss of Vladimir Braginsky
• Kip S. Thorne (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA)
  Home Page of Kip S. Thorne
• Rainer Weiss (MIT KAVli institute for astrophysics AND Space Research, Cambridge, MA)