From general relativity to gravitational-wave astronomy
Haney specialises in modelling the waveforms that large gravitational-wave detectors such as LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA and the future Einstein Telescope can detect. She describes her work as an applied form of general relativity: “I am much more of a mathematical physicist than my colleagues who are involved in the experiments, which sometimes border on engineering,” she explains. By comparing theoretically predicted waveforms with the signals measured by detectors, Haney and her colleagues can distinguish faint signals from distant colliding black holes or neutron stars from the ever-present background noise.“I am very excited to become a member of the VU science faculty in this way,” says Haney. “The idea is that I will build a bridge between the students, who are often very interested in theory, and the much more practical world of experiments. I gently nudge them from Einstein to the Einstein Telescope, so to speak.”
International career in a new era of discovery
Haney grew up and studied physics in Jena, in eastern Germany. She obtained her PhD in Rome and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in India and Switzerland. Since 2022, she has been a staff member at Nikhef in Amsterdam, working in the Gravitational Waves group. Her career has closely followed the birth of gravitational-wave astronomy as a new discipline. The first gravitational wave was detected in 2015 using the two LIGO detectors in the United States. At the time, Haney was in Mumbai, India, as a member of the Virgo/LIGO collaboration. She vividly remembers the tension: “People were, above all, very nervous. There were indications of a signal, but we really couldn’t afford to make a mistake. ”When the discovery was finally announced in early 2016, it felt less like a sudden historic moment and more like a release: “We’d been calculating the signal in the strictest confidence for months; we knew it inside out. The publication was mainly a relief that we were finally allowed to talk about it.” That first detection marked the beginning of a new era. “Gravitational-wave astronomy has become a proper discipline – a new way of looking at the universe. In that sense, I now also call myself an astronomer, even though I am, of course, a physicist.”
Broadening VU’s role in gravitational-wave research
Haney’s new chair, established by the Society for the Promotion of Natural Sciences, Medicine and Surgery (GNGH), is intended to broaden and deepen VU Amsterdam’s efforts in the field of gravitational waves, in close collaboration with Nikhef and international partners. Her work also connects to future large-scale observatories such as the Einstein Telescope and the space-based detector LISA. LISA, a planned gravitational-wave observatory in orbit around the Sun, was once put on hold when NASA withdrew. LISA has since been revived under the leadership of ESA, with Nikhef involved in the hardware. While Haney is not formally part of the LISA project, her expertise is regularly sought, particularly on methods and infrastructure for signal processing. The questions she works on for LISA are similar to those arising around the Einstein Telescope:
“In current detectors, you get one observation per day or week. In the new generation of instruments, that becomes a hundred a day. How do you find all those signals, how much computing power is needed, how do you organise something like that?”
These are exactly the challenges that drive her: “I can genuinely look forward to what we can learn about the universe with the Einstein Telescope or LISA. For example, I’m fascinated by the question of how the gigantic black holes at the centre of galaxies form. You can do all the calculations you like, but it is so exciting to see it happen in the real universe.” With her appointment, VU Amsterdam reinforces its position at the forefront of this young and rapidly evolving field – and offers students direct access to one of its leading practitioners.
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