Chairman : Françoise Combes
On 14 September 2015, gravitational wave detectors observed the gravitational signal produced by the merger of two massive black holes at great astronomical distance. On 17 August 2017, the detectors observed the signal from the merger of two neutron stars, immediately followed by the detection of a gamma-ray electromagnetic burst, then the optical observation and tracking in other electromagnetic frequencies of a phenomenon called kilonova. These discoveries represent a major revolution in astronomy. In this talk, we'll show how to decipher the physical information contained in the gravitational wave signal, in particular measuring the parameters of the source (a binary system of compact stars) and testing the theory of general relativity.
