Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Syracuse Alumnus Instrumental in LIGO’s Third Detection of Gravitational Waves

Thursday, June 1, 2017, By Rob Enslin
Share
College of Arts and SciencesLIGOPhysicsresearchSTEM
Black hole

A rendering of two spiraling black holes. Illustration by LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)

An alumnus of the College of Arts and Sciences has been instrumental in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)’s third detection of gravitational waves, demonstrating that a new window onto astronomy is fully open.

Alex Nitz G’15, who earned a Ph.D. in physics, helped detect the signal on Jan. 4, 2017, using a software package he began developing at Syracuse. As was the case with LIGO’s first two detections, the wave in question came from the merger of two black holes, resulting in the formation of a single larger black hole.

Nitz is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany. From 2010-15, he was a member of Syracuse’s Gravitational-Wave Research Group, part of the worldwide LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

LIGO is a national facility for gravitational-wave research, consisting of two massive detectors—one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana—that use laser interferometry to measure tiny ripples in spacetime, caused by gravitational waves from colliding black holes.

Alex Nitz

Alex Nitz (Courtesy of Detroit Free Press)

“We are extremely proud of Alex for helping detect the furthest binary black hole merger that LIGO has seen. These black holes are over 2.8 billion light-years away,” says Duncan Brown, the Charles Brightman Professor of Physics at Syracuse, adding that a light-year equals 6 trillion miles.

Peter Saulson, the Martin A. Pomerantz ’37 Professor of Physics at Syracuse, says the detection of gravitational waves confirms Einstein’s general theory of relativity. “In this event, a black hole 31 times the mass of the sun collided, at half the speed of light, with a black hole 19 times the mass of the sun, turning almost two solar masses into energy,” says Saulson, referencing Einstein’s famous E = mc2 equation. “If the energy produced was visible light, instead of gravitational waves, the collision would have been brighter than all the stars in the universe combined.”

Stefan Ballmer, associate professor of physics at Syracuse, says the mass of the new black hole formed by the merger is 16 million times that of Earth. “Amazing, considering the newfound black hole is only a couple hundred miles across—approximately the distance from Syracuse to New York City,” he adds.

Nitz was in Hannover, examining data from LIGO Livingston, when he helped discover the new signal. “Normally, our analyses alert us of events observed by both [LIGO] detectors, but, on this day, data from LIGO Hanford was not being analyzed automatically,” Nitz says. “I knew that the data, itself, was good quality, so I decided to manually check if there was any sign of a corresponding signal in the other detector. What I saw made my heart jump.”

Nitz confirmed the findings with his colleagues, before reconfiguring the analysis to look for the signal in the recorded data from the two detectors. Again, the data produced a significant event, now known as “GW170104.”

“I alerted the group, beginning a process that woke up a lot of people a bit early in the United States,” says Nitz, a co-author of a paper about the discovery in Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society, 2017). “We compared the waveform to data we got from the detectors’ instruments, hunting for a small signal buried amid the noise. The analysis confirmed both instruments saw the same kind of signal at nearly the same time.”

three physicists

Peter Saulson, Duncan Brown and Stefan Ballmer, from left

Central to the detection was PyCBC Live, a type of software Nitz developed that helps find signals and study their parameters. Although he began working on the software toward the end of LIGO’s initial phase, Nitz says that being at Syracuse during the project’s five-year upgrade, resulting in Advanced LIGO, helped him “get in on the ground floor” with people looking for gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers.

Ballmer, Brown and Saulson co-lead Syracuse’s Gravitational-Wave Research Group. With more than two dozen members, it is one of the larger, more diverse groups in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and operated by MIT and Caltech, which conceived and built the project. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council) making significant commitments and contributions to the project. More than 1,000 scientists from around the world participate in the effort through the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. LIGO partners with the Virgo Collaboration, a consortium including 280 additional scientists throughout Europe supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and Nikhef, as well as Virgo’s host institution, the European Gravitational Observatory. Additional partners are listed at http://ligo.org/partners.php.enter(

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • ‘ADA Live!’ Focuses on Protection and Advocacy Systems for People with Disabilities
    Sunday, February 28, 2021, By News Staff
  • Hilda A. Frimpong Becomes the First Black Student to Lead Syracuse Law Review
    Saturday, February 27, 2021, By Robert Conrad
  • Important Update for Flexible Spending Accounts
    Friday, February 26, 2021, By News Staff
  • Message From Dean of Students Marianne Thomson
    Friday, February 26, 2021, By News Staff
  • CAS in Intercollegiate Athletic Advising and Support Addresses Unique Needs of College Student-Athletes
    Thursday, February 25, 2021, By Jennifer Russo

More In STEM

Aerospace Engineering Alumni Profile: George Kirby ’92

Great technology requires an equally impressive business plan supporting it. The goal is to have a company led by someone who understands what makes the company innovative and also the business and analytical skill to grow it into an industry…

Keeping SARS2 Out of the Cell

As vaccines are distributed worldwide to fight the pandemic, important research at Syracuse University may uncover ways to block it and similar viruses in the future. Alison Patteson, assistant professor of physics, and Jennifer Schwarz, associate professor of physics, recently…

Syracuse University Campus as a Laboratory Funding Now Available

The Syracuse University Campus as a Laboratory for Sustainability (CALS) program is offering up to $75,000 for faculty or student projects that advance the University’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, directly or indirectly, or through raising awareness on campus…

Biology Professor Breaks Down Science Behind Ancestry, Heritage Tests

As people celebrate Black History Month, many in and connected to the African American community may be interested in tracing more of their family history and learning about their connections to the African continent. How do you piece together your…

ECS Receives National Recognition for College’s Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

The College of Engineering and Computer Science was recently awarded bronze level status from the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) Diversity Recognition Program. The program’s goal is to help engineering, engineering technology and computing programs promote diversity, equity and…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2021 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.