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We live in the new era of multi-messenger astronomy, with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo gravitational wave detectors partnering with telescopes around the world to study cosmic collisions of black holes and neutron stars. This new astronomy allows us to peer deeper into the cosmos and reach farther back into the history of our Universe than ever before. In the coming decades we will explore our Universe using detectors that reach across the gravitational wave spectrum, including a world-wide network of Earth-based detectors, the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), and the galactic-scale pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) such as the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational waves (NANOGrav). We have learned from the history of astronomy to expect the unexpected when opening a new window on the Universe and we now sit on the threshold of a wealth of exciting discoveries.

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Astrophysics Across the Gravitational Wave Spectrum

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gravitational waves

black holes

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As we approach the fifth anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have collected an impressive census of compact binary mergers in the local universe. By the end of the second observing run in August 2017 the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration claimed a total of 10 binary black hole mergers and one binary neutron star merger. The third observing run spanned April 2019 through March 2020, during which the collaborations alerted the astronomical community of 56 merger candidates.&nbsp; Thus far, the exceptional events announced by the collaboration include GW190425, GW190412, GW190814, and GW190521. I will present some of what this cosmic soundtrack has taught us about black holes in particular over the last five years, and what may lie ahead.

Adding a Cosmic Soundtrack

The recent preprint of the second catalog of transient gravitational waves* by the LIGO Scientific and Virgo collaborations reveals 39 events detected in the first half of the third observation run O3. Beginning Apr 1, 2019 and running 11 months, LIGO and Virgo interferometers recorded an average of one likely GW signal every six days, before suspending operations owing to the global pandemic. Novel detections in the first half of O3 include GW190521, a binary black hole merger that produced the first clear detection of an intermediate-mass black hole, and, GW190814, whose constituents include either the heaviest known neutron star or the lightest known black hole. In this talk we review detector performance in O3 and summarize the catalog of transients. We furthermore sketch the pathway to O4 in 2022, including detector upgrades to optics, lasers, and the addition of a frequency-dependent squeezed light source. *https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14527

LIGO Status and Plans

While most stars will happily orbit about the center of their host galaxy for their entire lifetime, a few of them are less fortunate. These unlucky stars get scattered towards the supermassive black hole at their galaxy center. There they will suffer a tidal disruption and the stellar debris will ultimately disappear into the black hole. These stellar tidal disruptions events are rare and result in a spectacular flare of electromagnetic radiation. Visible from radio to X-ray wavelengths, tidal disruption flares are a unique probe to study massive black holes. Over the last decade, astronomers have gotten increasingly adept at finding these events. The advent of optical transient surveys has accelerated this effort, resulting in a large number of (often unexpected) discoveries. In this talk I will review this progress, demonstrating some the applications of tidal disruption events as tools to study black holes and their host galaxies.

Unlucky Stars Illuminate Massive Black Holes

Particle physics shapes our view of nature in a fundamentally new way. Unfortunately, most students in today’s public schools never have a chance to learn about the strangeness and beauty of the world of elementary particles. Fermilab’s Lederman Science Center (LSC) houses many interactive exhibits that are available to the public to explore particle physics from a child’s point of view. LSC exhibits introduce students to the basic concepts behind Fermilab’s science—scale of the universe, symmetry in nature, fundamental particles and forces, accelerators and detectors. These exhibits kick-start and sustain long-term interests that involve sophisticated learning. We believe that learning is broader than schooling, and informal science environments, such as the LSC, play a crucial role in developing the STEM workforce, and stimulating science literacy.

Lederman Science Center at Fermilab

Science World, a Vancouver-based science centre with a provincial mandate,&nbsp;is proud of our long-standing strong and mutually beneficial relationship with K-12 teachers. In the face of changing curriculum in 2015, we comprehensively surveyed&nbsp; teachers province-wide to understand how best to support them. I'll show how we turned the results of that survey into a multi-pronged action plan that included curriculum resources, professional development, and programming for classes near and far. As we rolled out the plan, we created new partnerships with formal and informal science education, and dove into new content (coding and computational thinking!), all of which&nbsp;helped us pivot to successfully support teachers through COVID times.

Informal and Formal Together: A Science Centre Supporting Schools

The science education that pre-service elementary teachers receive shapes their and their students'&nbsp;relationship with science. Elementary school teachers report&nbsp;low confidence and low enthusiasm when it comes to learning and teaching science. The Hands on Science (HoS) program at UT Austin was created as part of the successful UTeach program, to serve the unique needs of Applied Learning and Development majors. HoS consists of four required content courses: Physics, Chemistry &amp; Geology, Biology, and Astronomy &amp; Earth Climate. HoS classes were designed using best-practices from education research&nbsp;to meet the specific needs of future elementary school teachers. They differ from traditional introductory science courses in two ways:&nbsp;our students learn the specific content they will later be expected to teach, and they learn it&nbsp;through hands-on inquiry. They attain higher learning gains and show improved attitudes towards learning and teaching science, compared to students in&nbsp;traditional lecture-based intro classes.

Supporting Pre-Service Primary School Teachers with Hands on Science

OnRamps provides distance education courses via a dual enrollment model—in which UT-Austin faculty, learning specialists, and experts in college success partner with Texas high school (HS) districts to implement courses—to more than 38,000 students across Texas. The goal of OnRamps is to increase the number and diversity of students who are prepared to excel at the university level. OnRamps currently offers two introductory physics courses that have grown from a pilot program of 16 HS instructors and approximately 500 students to a current cohort of over 170 instructors and over 6,000 students across Texas. OnRamps provides yearlong professional learning and development—virtually and in-person—to these HS instructors to implement courses with fidelity, enhance expertise, and boost student engagement. We will explore these and other aspects of the OnRamps Physics instructor and student experiences.

OnRamps Physics: Experiencing UT-Austin at Texas High Schools

International Masterclasses offered by QuarkNet give students a chance to engage in authentic particle physics data analysis. In the spring of 2020, most of the masterclasses had to be canceled. In order to still provide the opportunity for students to engage in authentic data analysis and interact with physicists, QuarkNet offered the Big Analysis of Muons in CMS (BAMC). Teacher and student experience with this simplified version of the traditional masterclass will be discussed, including experience with lessons that teachers could do remotely with students to prepare them for the data analysis, user-friendly online tools for the data analysis, the talk by a physicist to provide background, and the live discussion of the results. The BAMC allowed students to experience how large collaborations can work together to produce a result and to learn how some of the concepts they were discussing in class are applied in current physics research.

Experience with the QuarkNet Big Analysis of Muons in CMS

Studies show that teacher stress is at an all-time high.&nbsp; In recent years, job related stress for teachers escalated due to role intensification, high stakes testing, school shootings, and societal unrest. The pandemic has only added to this stress.&nbsp; “Teacher well-being has been greatly impacted by the covid-19 pandemic (due to)…secondary trauma and shifting needs and demands (which leave) teachers on call day and night.” (5)&nbsp; Best practices to combat teacher stress include implementing support structures such as mentoring, team flexibility, and stress management training, in addition to actively promoting teacher health initiatives.&nbsp; However, the most impactful and lasting means of reducing teacher workplace stress would be the adoption of “ecological interventions” designed to shift the public’s perspective on teachers’ role in society. (4)&nbsp; This talk will discuss the overall success of various support structures on reducing teacher stress, as well as debate the feasibility of long term “ecological interventions.”

Feasibility of Ecological Interventions to Reduce Teacher Stress

One hundred and one years after his death, the breadth of William Crooke’s scientific work and discoveries still evokes surprise, as many may not be familiar with his achievements. Crookes started his scientific career at the Royal College of Chemistry when just 16, winning a scholarship within a year and becoming an assistant to the Director, August Hofmann. He was interested in photographic research but took a post as assistant at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford and then became a teacher in Chester. He married Ellen Humphrey and changed positions several times as editor of various photographic journals. He founded Chemical News which remained his main source of income for the rest of his life. His subsequent career included the discovery of thallium, agricultural research, health research, the invention of the well-known radiometer, work on cathode rays and psychic research. He died on 4 th April 1919.

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Astrophysics Across the Gravitational Wave Spectrum

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