SRM - AP Celebrates 10th Anniversary of the First Direct Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO.

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the first direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO detectors from the colliding binary black hole event, GW150914, which occurred at a distance of approximately 1.3 billion light-years from Earth, SRM University-AP, has organized a public talk, titled “Accomplishing the impossible: detection of gravitational waves by LIGO” which was de-livered by Dr. Shivaraj Kandhasamy of Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. The lecture was attended by over 100 students from nearby schools, along with attendees from near and faraway places.

This event is part of a comprehensive workshop on Gravitational Waves and LIGO India, currently being hosted by SRM University – AP, between September 10 – 14, 2025, organized by Center for Astrophysics, Gravitation and Cosmology (CAGC), SRM University Sikkim, and IUCAA, Pune to commemorate a decade of discovery of gravitational waves.

The workshop is sponsored by IUCAA along with the Department of Physics & Research Office, SRM University-AP, and is aimed at enhancing knowledge and collaboration in the field of gravi-tational wave research. The main coordinators of the workshop are Prof. Shubhrangshu Ghosh, Chairperson, CAGC, SRM University Sikkim, Dr. Apratim Ganguly IUCAA, and Prof. Soumyajyoti Biswas, SRM University -AP. The workshop was inaugurated by the esteemed chief guest, Prof. Ch. Satish Kumar, the Honorable Vice Chancellor of SRM University -AP.

The workshop attracted a diverse group of around 50 participants, comprising 20 students and fac-ulty members from SRM University AP, and around 30 external attendees, including eminent as-trophysicists from various prestigious institutions, including Central University of Andhra Pra-desh, IIT Hyderabad, Osmania University, Indian Institute of Sciences, Indian Institute of Astro-physics, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, University of Madras, The Institute of Mathe-matical Sciences, VIT, Vellore, NIT Calicut, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CU-SAT), etc.

Throughout the workshop, which has been truly interdisciplinary, participants engage in a series of detailed lectures covering essential topics such as general relativity, interferometry, computing infrastructure, gravitational-wave sources, and their detection to inference methods. In addition to the theoretical components, the workshop included hands-on sessions that provided practical ex-perience in detector calibrations, instrumentation, and feedback control systems. The sessions were led by resource persons from IUCAA Pune, including Dr. Apratim Ganguly, Dr. Sandeep K. Joshi, Dr. Shivaraj Kandhasamy, Prof Shasvath J. Kapadia, and Dr. Manasadevi P. T., who shared their extensive expertise in gravitational wave research.