DR. KRISHNA RAJ VENKATESWARA

Gravity is central to many of the puzzles in modern physics such as Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and the Early Universe. Gravitational-wave astronomy with compact binary mergers, supernovae, and other sources with LIGO, and precision experiments with Torsion-Balances can provide answers to these mysteries and pave the way to a better understanding of our universe. In the first part of the talk, the speaker will describe the LIGO detectors and the unique gravitational-wave science they are enabling. He will focus on an important subsystem, the active seismic isolation system, which he helped improve using ultra-sensitive ground-rotation sensors developed at the University of Washington. In the later part of the talk, he will describe some of the Torsion-Balance experiments being done at UW, focusing on two which can improve the search for short range violations of the inverse square law or spin-coupled forces, and recently proposed ultra-light bosonic dark matter.