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SUMMARY:Detecting Gravitational Waves (and doing other cool physics) with 
 Millisecond Pulsars  - Scott Ransom (NRAO)
DTSTART:20130502T153000Z
DTEND:20130502T163000Z
UID:TALK41449@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jay Farihi
DESCRIPTION:The first millisecond pulsar was discovered in 1982. Since tha
 t time their use as highly-accurate celestial clocks has improved continua
 lly\, so that they are now regularly used to measure a variety of general 
 relativistic effects and probe a variety of topics in basic physics\, such
  as the equation of state of matter at supra-nuclear densities. One of the
 ir most exciting uses though\, is the current North American (NANOGrav) an
 d international (the International Pulsar Timing Array) efforts to directl
 y detect nanohertz frequency gravitational waves\, most likely originating
  from the ensemble of supermassive black hole binaries scattered throughou
 t the universe. In this talk I’ll describe how we are using an ensemble 
 of pulsars to try to make such a measurement\, how we could make a detecti
 on within the next 5-10 years\, and how we get a wide variety of very inte
 resting secondary science from the pulsars in the meantime. 
LOCATION:Sackler Lecture Theatre\, IoA (tea at 4:00 pm)
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