XXIXth Spanish Relativity Meeting (ERE 2006): Einstein's Legacy: from the Theoretical Paradise to Astrophysical Observations

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series 2007-06, Vol.66 (1), p.011001
• Main Authors: Apostolopoulos, P, Bona, C, Carot, J, Mas, Ll, Sintes, A M, Stela, J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Black holes; Cosmology; Dark energy; Dark matter; Data analysis; Galactic rotation; Galaxies; Gravitational waves; Microwave Anisotropy Probe; Numerical relativity; Physicists; Physics; Relativity; Template matching; Theory of relativity
• ISSN: 1742-6596; 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/66/1/011001

These are exciting times for any scientist working on relativity, cosmology and/or gravitation. The contents of this volume correspond to the 2006 Spanish Relativity Meeting, held at Palma de Mallorca. Since the 2005 meeting, which took place in Oviedo, many important developments have taken place in this area of knowledge. Take for instance the numerical relativity community, my own subject. During the past year, we achieved long-term numerical simulations of binary-black-hole systems. For the first time, we managed to extract the gravitational wave profiles for different configurations of these important astrophysical systems. This was a real milestone because binary-black-holes are the most likely candidates for sources of gravitational waves that could be detected by ground-based interferometric facilities like LIGO or VIRGO. This is not just an elaborate claim. We have actually started to generate a library of BBH gravitational wave patterns that can be used as templates for matched filtering of the experimental data. Concerning the big experimental projects themselves, the Franco-Italian collaboration VIRGO had just finished the engineering runs and was then ready to start taking scientific data in the autumn, just after the closure of the Meeting. The American project LIGO, in turn, during that year performed its 5th science run, achieving its design sensitivity. So the hunt for gravitational wave signals has really started in earnest. Another great achievement is that after two decades of anticipation, we are finally in the position of analyzing real data to the expected accuracy. The quality of the data is greatly improved by running in coincidence both the Pacific and the Atlantic LIGO sites plus the German facility GEO600. You may wonder how the data analysis task force has not drowned in the huge amount of data! In mentioning vasty quantities of experimental data, let me point out here the recent release of the results from the analysis of the full three-year dataset of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe. When these results are cross-referenced with other observations, such as supernova expansion surveys, we get fits for the cosmological parameters giving values with error bars that we can trust up to the third digit. This means that we have entered an era of precision cosmology. So things are getting really serious. Another exciting initiative started in summer 2005 with the debate about the role of general relativity in explaining the rotation sp