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Research Institute in Mathematics and Physics

ARC project GWAS

irmp | Louvain-la-Neuve

Gravitational Wave Science (GWAS)        

Gravitational waves (GW) are ripples of space-time that can be created by accelerated mass that satisfy certain conditions. Their effect on an object encountered along their path is a compression in one direction and a stretch in the perpendicular one. Because gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, even some of the most energetic systems in the universe produce GWs whose observable effects on Earth are exceedingly small. The current GW detectors are L-shaped laser interferometers capable of measuring variations in the lengths of their km-long arms of the order of 10-18 meters via changes in the interference pattern produced by their laser beams. Such detectors demand cutting-edge technologies in the fields of optics, mechanics, electronics, materials science, ultra-high vacuum, and data science in order to guarantee the required discrimination of the tiny GW signals from noise of various nature that can arise in all interferometer components or from the surrounding environment.

The two LIGO interferometers in the USA and the Virgo interferometer at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Cascina, near Pisa (Italy) are the three most sensitive GW detectors in operation to date. The Virgo Collaboration counts more than 500 members from all over Europe. The two LIGO detectors came into operation after a long phase of significant upgrades in September 2015 for the so called observation run O1, in which the first observation of GWs was made. The Virgo detector joined LIGO toward the end of the observing run O2 in August 2017. LIGO and Virgo have a memorandum of agreement according to which data from the three interferometers is shared, data analyses are performed jointly, and publications are signed jointly.

The GWAS project addresses data analysis, computing and development of instrumentation for the Virgo and Einstein Telescope GW detectors."

Promoters of the convention:
Giacomo BRUNO (UCLouvain, Promoteur Porte-Parole), Christophe COLLETTE (ULiège), Jean-René CUDELL (ULiège) et Christophe RINGEVAL (UCLouvain)

Individuals (present and past):
Pierre Auclair, Francesca Badaracco, Ricardo Cabrita, Disrael Da Cuhna, Federico De Lillo, Antoine Depasse, Elvis Ferreira, Jef Heynen, Cristian Joana, Andrew Miller, Magdalena Sieniawska, Andres Tanasijczuk, Joris Van Heijningen, Stavros Venikoudis, Morgane Zeoli.

Theses defended as part of this project:

  • Cristian Joana, Cosmic inhomogeneities in the early universe: a numerical relativity approach, 21/10/2022, superviseurs Christophe Ringeval and Sebastien Clesse (ULB).
  • Federico De Lillo, Searching for Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Backgrounds with LIGO and Virgo Detectors, 27/05/2024, superviseur Giacomo Bruno (UCLOuvain). 

  • . Auclair, K. Leyde and D. Steer, A window for cosmic strings, arXiv: 2112.11093.

  • A.L. Miller, S. Clesse, F. De Lillo et al., Probing planetary-mass primordial black holes with continuous gravitational waves, Phys.Dark Univ. 32 (2021) 100836. Preprint realised in 2020, review and publication in May 2021.

  • KAGRA and Virgo and LIGO Scientific Collaborations, Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo’s first three observing runs, Phys.Rev.D 104 (2021) 2, 022005.

  •  A.L. Miller, N. Aggarwal, S. Clesse, F. De Lillo, Constraints on planetary and asteroid-mass primordial black holes from continuous gravitational-wave searches, arxiv: 2110.06188.

  • S. Caudill, S. Kandhasamy, C. Lazzaro, A. Matas, M. Sieniawska, A.L. Stuver, Gravitational-wave searches in the era of Advanced LIGO and Virgo, Modern Physics Letters A, Volume 36, Issue 23, id. 2130022-458.

  • KAGRA and Virgo and LIGO Scientific Collaborations, Tests of General Relativity with GWTC-3, arXiv:2112.06861, submitted to PRD.

  • D.C.N. da Cunha and C. Ringeval, Interferences in the stochastic gravitational wave background, JCAP 08 (2021) 005, arXiv: 2104.14231 [astro-ph.CO].

  •  C. Joana, S. Clesse, Inhomogeneous pre-inflation accross Hubble scales in full general relativity, Phys. Rev. D 103, 083501 (2021), arXiv:2011.12190.

  • T. Andrade, C. Joana, et al., GRChombo: An adaptable numerical relativity code for fundamental physics, Journal of Open Source Software, 6(68), 3703, arXiv: 2201.03458.

  • K. Janssens, J. Suresh, et al., Gravitational-Wave Geodesy: Defining False Alarm Probabilities with Respect to Correlated Noise, arXiv: 2112.03560.


  • KAGRA and Virgo and LIGO Scientific Collaborations, All-sky search for gravitational wave emission from scalar boson clouds around spinning black holes in LIGO O3 data, arXiv:2111.15507.

  •  KAGRA and Virgo and LIGO Scientific Collaborations, Constraints on the cosmic expansion history from GWTC-3, arXIv:2111.03604.

  • J.V. van Heijningen, J. Winterflood and L. Ju, Multi-blade monolithic Euler springs with optimised stress distribution, arXiv:2104.03734.

  • H. van der Graaf et al., The ultimate performance of the Rasnik 3-point alignment system, arXiv:2104.03601.

  • J. Harms et al., Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna, ApJ 910 1.

  • J.V. van Heijningen, How I got into gravitational waves, LIGO India blog, April 2021, science dissemination.

  • J.V. van Heijningen, Building a gravitational wave detector on the Moon, LIGO India blog, August 2021, science dissemination.

  •  J.V. van Heijningen, Where do gravitational waves come from, and how can we detect more?, book chapter in “Teaching Einsteinian Physics in Schools”,  August 2021.

  • F. Badaracco, J. Harms, C. De Rossi, I. Fiori , K. Miyo, T. Tanaka, T. Yokozawa, F. Paoletti and T. Washimi, KAGRA underground environment and lessons for the Einstein Telescope, Physical Review D, 104(4), p.042006, 2021, arXiv:2104.07527.

  • E.C. Ferreira, F. Bocchese, F. Badaracco, J.V. van Heijningen, S. Lucas and A. Perali, Superconducting thin film spiral coils as low-noise cryogenic actuators, Conference Series (Vol. 2156, No. 1, p. 012080), December 2021, IOP Publishing.

  • F. Badaracco and Virgo Collaboration, Environmental noises in current and future gravitational-wave detectors, Conference Series (Vol. 2156, No. 1, p. 012077), December 2021, IOP Publishing.

  • A. Addazi et al., Quantum gravity phenomenology at the dawn of the multi-messenger era–A review, Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics (2021), arXiv: 2111.05659 [hep-ph].

  • I. La Rosa, P. Astone, S. D’Antonio, S. Frasca, P. Leaci, A.L. Miller, C. Palomba, O.J. Piccinni, L. Pierini, and T. Regimbau, Continuous Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis with General Purpose Computing on Graphic Processing Units, Universe 7.7 (2021).

  • R. Abbott et al., Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo’s first three observing runs, Phys. Rev. D 104.2 (2021), p. 022005, arXiv: 2103.08520 [gr-qc].

  • R. Abbott et al., Diving below the Spin-down Limit: Constraints on Gravitational Waves from the Energetic Young Pulsar PSR J0537-6910, The Astrophysical Journal Letters 913.2 (May 2021), p. L27. url: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/abffcd.

  • A.L. Miller et al., Probing new light gauge bosons with gravitational-wave interferometers using an adapted semi-coherent method, Phys. Rev. D 103.10 (2021), p. 103002. arXiv: 2010.01925 [astro-ph.IM].

  • Andrew L. Miller et al., Using gravitational-wave interferometers as particle detectors to directly probe the existence of dark matter, Letter of Intent for Snowmass 2021 (Aug. 2020).

  • Ling Sun, Cristiano Palomba, and Andrew L. Miller. “Snowmass2021-Letter of Interest Search for gravitational waves from ultralight boson clouds around black holes”. In: Letter of Intent for Snowmass 2021 (Aug. 2020).

  •  C. Joana, Gravitational dynamics in Higgs inflation: Preinflation and preheating with an auxiliary field, Phys. Rev. D 106 (2022) 023504, arXiv:2202.07604.

  • D. C. N. da Cunha, C. Ringeval and F. R. Bouchet, Stochastic gravitational waves from long cosmic strings, JCAP 09 (2022) 078, arXiv: 2205.04349 [astro-ph.CO]

  • P. Auclair and C. Ringeval, Slow-roll inflation at N3LO, Phys. Rev. D 106 (2022) 063512, arXiv: 2205.12608.

  • J. Martin, C. Ringeval and V. Vennin, Encyclopædia Inflationaris, Phys. Dark Univ. 5-6 (2014) 75–235, arXiv: 1303.3787v3.

  • J. Martin, C. Ringeval and V. Vennin, Encyclopædia Inflationaris: opiparous edition, arXiv: 1303.3787v4.

  • P. Auclair, C. Caprini, D. Cutting, M. Hindmarsh, K. Rummukainen, D. A. Steer and D. J. Weir, Generation of gravitational waves from freely decaying turbulence, JCAP 09 (2022), 029, arXiv:2205.02588 [astro-ph.CO]

  • P. Auclair et al., LISA Cosmology Working Group, Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, arXiv:2204.05434 [astro-ph.CO] .

  • P. Auclair, Mean-filed approach to random apollonian packing, Phys. Rev. E (2023) 107, 034129, arXiv: 2211.07509 [math-ph].

  • F. De Lillo, J. Suresh, A. Depasse, M. Sieniawska, A. Miller and G. Bruno, Probing ensemble properties of vortex-avalanche pulsar glitches with a stochastic gravitational-wave background search, arXiv:2211.16857 (2022) [gr-qc].

  • LIGO Scientific, Virgo, and KAGRA Collaborations, R. Abbott et al., All-sky, all-frequency directional search for persistent gravitational waves from Advanced LIGO’s and Advanced Virgo’s first three observing runs, Phys. Rev. D 105 (2022) 12, 122001, arXiv: 2110.09834

  • D. Agarwal, J. Suresh, V. Mandic, A. Matas and T. Regimbau, Targeted search for the stochastic gravitational-wave background from the galactic millisecond pulsar population, Phys. Rev. D 106 (2022) 4, 043019, arXiv: 2204.08378 [gr-qc].

  • F. D. Lillo, J. Suresh and A. L. Miller, Stochastic gravitational-wave background searches and constraints on neutron-star ellipticity, Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 513 (2022) 1, 1105-1114.

  • K. Janssens, T. A. Callister, N. Christensen, M. W. Coughlin, I. Michaloliakos, J. Suresh and N. van Remortel, Gravitational-Wave Geodesy: Defining False Alarm Probabilities with Respect to Correlated Noise, Phys. Rev. D 105 (2022) 8, 082001, arXiv:2112.03560

  • A. L. Miller, N. Aggarwal, S. Clesse and F. De Lillo, Constraints on planetary and asteroid-mass primordial black holes from continuous gravitational-wave searches, Phys.Rev.D 105 (2022) 6, 062008.

  • F. Badaracco,J. van Heijningen, E. Ferreira and A. Perali, A cryogenic and superconducting inertial sensor for the Lunar Gravitational–Wave Antenna, the Einstein Telescope and Selene-physics, Conference Proceeding of The Sixteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, pp. 3245-3253 (2023)

  • F. Amann, F. Badaracco, R. DeSalvo, A. Paoli, L. Paoli, P. Ruggi and S. Selleri, Tunnel configurations and seismic isolation optimization in underground gravitational wave detectors, Applied Sciences. 2022; 12(17):8827, arXiv:2204.04131

  • K. Janssens, G. Boileau, N. Christensen, F. Badaracco and N. van Remortel, Impact of correlated seismic and correlated Newtonian noise on the Einstein telescope, 2022, Phys. Rev. D 106, 042008, arXiv:2206.06809

  • J. van Heijningen, A. Gatti, E. Ferreira, F. Bocchese, F. Badaracco,S. Lucas, A. Perali and F. Tavernier, A cryogenic inertial sensor for terrestrial and lunar gravitational-wave detection, 2022, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associat ed Equipment, 167231.

  • A. Miller, F. Badaracco and C. Palomba, Distinguishing between dark-matter interactions with gravitational-wave detectors, Phys. Rev. D 105 (2022) 103035, arXiv: 2204.03814

  • L. Trozzo and F. Badaracco, Seismic and Newtonian Noise in the GW Detectors, 2022, Galaxies, 10(1), p.20.

  • T. Yamamoto, A. Miller, M. Sieniawska and T. Tanaka, Assessing the impact of non-Gaussian noise on convolutional neural networks that search for continuous gravitational waves, Phys. Rev. D (2022) 106, 2, 024025, arXiv:2206.00882

  • M. Sieniawska and D. I. Jones, Gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars as not-quite-standard sirens, MNRAS 509 (2022) 4, pp.5179-5187, arXiv: 2108.11710

  • E.C. Ferreira et al. (incl. J. van Heijningen), 2022, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2156 012080

  • S. Di Pace, et al. (incl. J. van Heijningen), Research Facilities for Europe’s Next Generation Gravitational-Wave Detector Einstein Telescope, 2022, Galaxies 10, 65