Prof Martin Hendry

Abstract: In just a few short years the detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of black holes and neutron stars in the local (and increasingly distant!) universe has gone from being a Nobel-prizewinning scientific breakthrough to an almost routine occurrence – with the latest catalogue of gravitational-wave events published by the LIGO Virgo and KAGRA (LVK) scientific collaborations comprising a total of 90 detections, and the first half of the 4^th LVK observing run (which ran from May 2023 to January 2024) adding many more candidate events to that total.   In this talk I will briefly review the short history of gravitational-wave astronomy with the current generation of ground-based interferometers, summarising the discoveries – in astrophysics, relativity, fundamental physics and cosmology – that have been made to date and the prospects for further advances from the current and upcoming observing runs.  I will then briefly look ahead to the 2030s, and some of the exciting science opportunities that will be opened up by the next generation of ground-based detectors and the LISA mission.