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Stephen Fairhurst

Professor Stephen Fairhurst

Head of Gravity Exploration Institute

School of Physics and Astronomy

Email
FairhurstS@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 70166
Campuses
Queen's Buildings - North Building, Room 1.16, 5 The Parade, Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 3AA
Comment
Media commentator
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

My research focuses on observing gravitational wave signals emitted by the coalescence of black holes and neutron stars, and using these observations to understand the properties of the systems that we observe.

I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and for five years led the Compact Binary Coalescence group, responsible for searching for black hole and neutron star binary mergers.

Publication

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

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2006

2005

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2003

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1999

Articles

Monographs

Websites

Research

My research focuses primarily on identifying gravitational wave signals emitted by merging black holes and neutron stars, and using the observed signals to understand the properties of the sources. Over the years, I have developed large parts of the search and lead the Cardiff effort to search for binary merger signals in the advanced LIGO data.

In late 2015, gravitational waves emitted from merging black holes were observed for the first time. Subsequently, we have observed more than fifty gravitational wave signals from merging black holes and several from colliding neutron stars.

Teaching

  • I developed and taught the first year module 'Computational Skills for Problem Solving, from 2012 to 2015. Visit the Course website.
  • I developed and taught the fourth year module 'Advanced general relativity and gravitational waves' in 2015.
  • I currently teach the third year module `Special Relativity and Particle Physics'.

Biography

Prof Fairhurst obtained a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1995, and completed the part III mathematics in 1996. He obtained my PhD in Physics from Penn State University in 2001, supervised by Abhay Ashtekar. His doctoral research focused on the properties of black hole horizons.

Following his PhD, he was a Killam postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta for two years and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee for three years. It was at Milwaukee that he began to work on searches for gravitational waves using the LIGO, Virgo and GEO detectors. He worked as a visiting associate at the California Institute of technology for a year.

Prof Fairhurst joined the staff at Cardiff University in 2007. He was a Royal Society University Research Fellow from 2007 to 2014. He is currently a Professor at Cardiff University.

Supervisions

Current supervision

Sam Higginbotham

Sam Higginbotham

Research student