You are invited to special town hall with White House Science and Technology Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Arati Prabhakar, Ph.D .

Laser Interferometer Lunar Antenna: a new frontier in multi-messenger astrophysics
Karan Jani (Vanderbilt University)

The inaugural decade of gravitational-wave observations seeded by LIGO’s discoveries have shown the breakthrough impact this new cosmic messenger has on fundamental physics, astronomy, and cosmology. With new LIGO detector in India and ESA-NASA mission LISA, the next decade promises several firsts in the field of multi-messenger astrophysics. In this talk, we will discuss LILA (Laser Interferometer Lunar Antenna) - a new initiative between experimental gravitational physics, planetary geoscience and lunar exploration community to develop a gravitational-wave detector on the surface of the Moon. The Moon’s unique environment and location opens a new window in the sub-hertz gravitational-wave spectrum that is inaccessible by any current or upcoming detector on earth or in space. Access to sub-hertz band will fundamentally change the landscape of multi-messenger astrophysics by providing early-warning alerts of up to months for binary neutron stars. We will highlight LILA’s astrophysics deliverables and synergy with LISA/LIGO, which includes independent measurements of the cosmic acceleration to high redshifts, tests of General Relativity at cosmological scales, and new probes for physics beyond the Standard Model. We will discuss LILA’s timeline in the context of NASA Artemis, the commercial lunar exploration programs in the US, and lunar missions from Asia and Europe. In doing so, we invite the broader community to engage in our efforts for building an inclusive astrophysics collaboration for US’s return to the Moon.

Please join us for the SED Director’s Seminar hosted by the Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory, Code 663!

More information to come!