Prof. Jason E. Ybarra, Teaching Assistant Professor in the WVU Department of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the WVU Planetarium and Observatory, recently visited the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karnataka, India, to present the research being done in the WVU Department of Physics and Astronomy and the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Collaboration on the detection of low-frequency gravitational waves.
Lorimer and McLaughlin, internationally renowned astrophysicists and professors
in physics and astronomy in the Eberly College Department of Physics and Astronomy, are also recipients of the 2023 Shaw Prize,
the ‘Nobel of the East.’
The project, titled “SGR 1935 + 2154 Radio Data Research” was approved for $5,000 in funding which will support Morrigan’s research career, under the guidance of Prof. Sarah Burke-Spolaor, in the fields of magnetars, magnetic reconnection and magnetars as they relate to fast radio bursts.
A theoretical astrophysicist at West Virginia University will play a key role in the development of a first-of-its-kind planned space probe to detect and accurately measure gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space and time.
The resources provided by the NASA Planetary Science Early Career Award will allow Fowler and team to undertake research-related activities that are not always possible within the scope of more “traditional” research grants.
McLaughlin is co-director of the North American Nanohertz Observatory
for Gravitational Waves Physics Frontiers Center, or NANOGrav, which
recently announced evidence for gravitational waves
with periods of years to decades that had never previously been
observed. The Green Bank Telescope in Pocahontas County is the primary
telescope used for this work.
Riggs will graduate in May with a B.S. in Physics and minors in Applied Mathematics and Secondary STEM Education. “My research interests are in space plasma physics, specifically at collisionless shock boundaries like the Earth’s bow shock,” he said. “My past work has focused a lot on satellite observations of this location to work towards understanding how the energy changes as it moves from interplanetary space into Earth’s magnetosphere.”
