Miriam Cabero Mueller

One of the consequences of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, General Relativity, is the emission of gravitational waves by massive accelerating objects. These waves are tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime that propagate at the speed of light. When two massive objects are orbiting each other, they emit gravitational waves and, consequently, get closer together until they merge. My research focus is on studying collisions of black holes and neutron stars through their gravitational-wave signature. Under certain circumstances involving complicated matter dynamics, these collisions also emit electromagnetic light and neutrinos that can be observed by telescopes after the gravitational-wave signal is detected. At UBC, I have developed a new machine learning framework for astronomers to quickly identify real gravitational-wave signals from false alarms caused by detector noise. This framework optimizes how telescope time is invested in following up gravitational-wave sources, increasing the likelihood of observing the radiation emitted after the merger of black holes and neutron stars. With more joint observations of gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation or neutrinos, we will be able to advance our knowledge on the physics of extremely dense matter, the origin of heavy elements, and the rate of expansion of the Universe.