LIGO, VIRGO and KAGRA Observing Run Plans
The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaborations (LVK) prepare to resume their fourth observing run, including UT's Chen, Shoemaker and Zimmerman.
The first half of the fourth run ended January 16, 2024, and resulted in 81 detection candidates disseminated to the large astronomy community. These public alerts enable astronomers to follow up on potential gravitational wave detections identified in near-real-time by the LVK. The second half of the observing run is set to begin in the first half of April, with the European Virgo detector set to join the two LIGO detectors for observations continuing into February 2025. A three-detector network allows the scientists in the LVK to better locate the cosmic collisions that produce gravitational waves. These collisions can produce light across the whole spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays, and precise localization by the LVK gives astronomers the best chance at hunting for these multi-messenger events. UT Austin hosts a large member group of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, who use gravitational observations to better understand our Universe, black holes, and neutron stars, including Professors Chen, Shoemaker, and Zimmerman.
