On Thursday, February 11, a group of scientists from the international project LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced that they had succeeded, the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein back in 1916. According to the researchers, on September 14, 2015, they recorded a gravitational wave, which was caused by the collision of two black holes with a mass of 29 and 36 times the mass of the Sun, after which they merged into one large black hole. According to them, this happened supposedly 1.3 billion years ago at a distance of 410 Megaparsecs from our galaxy.

LIGA.net spoke in detail about gravitational waves and a large-scale discovery Bohdan Hnatyk, Ukrainian scientist, astrophysicist, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, leading researcher at the Astronomical Observatory of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, who headed the observatory from 2001 to 2004.

Theory in plain language

Physics studies the interaction between bodies. It has been established that there are four types of interaction between bodies: electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear interaction and gravitational interaction, which we all feel. Due to the gravitational interaction, the planets revolve around the Sun, the bodies have weight and fall to the ground. Human beings are constantly confronted with gravitational interaction.

In 1916, 100 years ago, Albert Einstein built a theory of gravity that improved Newton's theory of gravity, made it mathematically correct: it began to meet all the requirements of physics, began to take into account the fact that gravity propagates at a very high, but finite speed. This is rightfully one of Einstein's most ambitious achievements, as he built a theory of gravity that corresponds to all the phenomena of physics that we observe today.

This theory also suggested the existence gravitational waves. The basis of this prediction was that gravitational waves exist as a result of the gravitational interaction that occurs due to the merger of two massive bodies.

What is a gravitational wave

In a complex language, this is the excitation of the space-time metric. "Let's say space has a certain elasticity and waves can run through it. It's like when we throw a pebble into the water and waves scatter from it," Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences told LIGA.net.

Scientists managed to experimentally prove that such a fluctuation took place in the Universe and a gravitational wave ran in all directions. “For the first time, the phenomenon of such a catastrophic evolution of a binary system was recorded by an astrophysical method, when two objects merge into one, and this merger leads to a very intense release of gravitational energy, which then propagates in space in the form of gravitational waves,” the scientist explained.

What it looks like (photo - EPA)

These gravitational waves are very weak and in order for them to oscillate space-time, the interaction of very large and massive bodies is necessary so that the gravitational field strength is large at the place of generation. But, despite their weakness, the observer after a certain time (equal to the distance to the interaction divided by the speed of the signal) will register this gravitational wave.

Let's give an example: if the Earth fell on the Sun, then a gravitational interaction would occur: gravitational energy would be released, a gravitational spherically symmetric wave would form, and the observer could register it. "Here, a similar, but unique, from the point of view of astrophysics, phenomenon occurred: two massive bodies - two black holes - collided," Gnatyk noted.

Back to theory

A black hole is another prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which provides that a body that has a huge mass, but this mass is concentrated in a small volume, can significantly distort the space around it, up to its closure. That is, it was assumed that when a critical concentration of the mass of this body is reached - such that the size of the body will be less than the so-called gravitational radius, then the space will close around this body and its topology will be such that no signal from it will spread outside the closed space can not.

"That is, a black hole, in simple terms, is a massive object that is so heavy that it closes space-time around itself," the scientist says.

And we, according to him, can send any signals to this object, but he cannot send us. That is, no signals can go beyond the black hole.

A black hole lives according to the usual physical laws, but as a result of strong gravity, not a single material body, even a photon, is able to go beyond this critical surface. Black holes are formed during the evolution of ordinary stars, when the central core collapses and part of the star's matter, collapsing, turns into a black hole, and the other part of the star is ejected in the form of a supernova shell, turning into the so-called "flash" of a supernova.

How we saw the gravitational wave

Let's take an example. When we have two floats on the surface of the water and the water is calm, the distance between them is constant. When a wave comes, it shifts these floats and the distance between the floats will change. The wave has passed - and the floats return to their previous positions, and the distance between them is restored.

A gravitational wave propagates in a similar way in space-time: it compresses and stretches the bodies and objects that meet on its way. “When a certain object is encountered on the path of a wave, it deforms along its axes, and after its passage, it returns to its previous shape. Under the influence of a gravitational wave, all bodies are deformed, but these deformations are very insignificant,” says Hnatyk.

When the wave passed, which was recorded by scientists, the relative size of the bodies in space changed by a value of the order of 1 times 10 to the minus 21st power. For example, if you take a meter ruler, then it shrank by such a value that it was its size, multiplied by 10 to the minus 21st degree. This is a very small amount. And the problem was that scientists had to learn how to measure this distance. Conventional methods gave an accuracy of the order of 1 to 10 to the 9th power of a million, but here a much higher accuracy is needed. To do this, created the so-called gravitational antennas (detectors of gravitational waves).

LIGO observatory (photo - EPA)

The antenna that recorded the gravitational waves is constructed in this way: there are two tubes, about 4 kilometers long, arranged in the shape of the letter "L", but with the same arms and at right angles. When a gravitational wave falls on the system, it deforms the wings of the antenna, but depending on its orientation, it deforms one more and the other less. And then there is a path difference, the interference pattern of the signal changes - there is a total positive or negative amplitude.

“That is, the passage of a gravitational wave is similar to a wave on water passing between two floats: if we measured the distance between them during and after the passage of the wave, we would see that the distance would change, and then become the same again,” he said. Gnatyk.

It also measures the relative change in the distance of the two wings of the interferometer, each of which is about 4 kilometers long. And only very precise technologies and systems can measure such a microscopic displacement of the wings caused by a gravitational wave.

At the edge of the universe: where did the wave come from

Scientists recorded the signal using two detectors, which in the United States are located in two states: Louisiana and Washington at a distance of about 3 thousand kilometers. Scientists were able to estimate where and from what distance this signal came. Estimates show that the signal came from a distance that is 410 Megaparsecs. A megaparsec is the distance light travels in three million years.

To make it easier to imagine: the nearest active galaxy to us with a supermassive black hole in the center is Centaurus A, which is four Megaparsecs from ours, while the Andromeda Nebula is at a distance of 0.7 Megaparsecs. “That is, the distance from which the gravitational wave signal came is so great that the signal went to the Earth for about 1.3 billion years. These are cosmological distances that reach about 10% of the horizon of our Universe,” the scientist said.

At this distance, in some distant galaxy, two black holes merged. These holes, on the one hand, were relatively small in size, and on the other hand, the large amplitude of the signal indicates that they were very heavy. It was established that their masses were respectively 36 and 29 solar masses. The mass of the Sun, as you know, is a value that is equal to 2 times 10 to the 30th power of a kilogram. After the merger, these two bodies merged and now in their place a single black hole has formed, which has a mass equal to 62 solar masses. At the same time, approximately three masses of the Sun splashed out in the form of gravitational wave energy.

Who made the discovery and when

Scientists from the international LIGO project managed to detect a gravitational wave on September 14, 2015. LIGO (Laser Interferometry Gravitation Observatory) is an international project in which a number of states that have made a certain financial and scientific contribution take part, in particular the USA, Italy, Japan, which are advanced in the field of these studies.

Professors Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne (photo - EPA)

The following picture was recorded: there was a displacement of the wings of the gravitational detector, as a result of the actual passage of a gravitational wave through our planet and through this installation. This was not reported then, because the signal had to be processed, "cleaned", its amplitude found and checked. This is a standard procedure: from a real discovery to an announcement of a discovery, it takes several months to issue a valid claim. "No one wants to spoil their reputation. These are all secret data, before the publication of which - no one knew about them, there were only rumors," Hnatyk said.

Story

Gravitational waves have been studied since the 70s of the last century. During this time, a number of detectors were created and a number of fundamental studies were carried out. In the 80s, the American scientist Joseph Weber built the first gravitational antenna in the form of an aluminum cylinder, which had a size of the order of several meters, equipped with piezo sensors that were supposed to record the passage of a gravitational wave.

The sensitivity of this instrument was a million times worse than current detectors. And, of course, he could not really fix the wave at that time, although Weber said that he did it: the press wrote about it and a "gravitational boom" occurred - the world immediately began to build gravitational antennas. Weber encouraged other scientists to study gravitational waves and continue their experiments on this phenomenon, which made it possible to increase the sensitivity of detectors a million times.

However, the very phenomenon of gravitational waves was recorded in the last century, when scientists discovered a double pulsar. It was an indirect registration of the fact that gravitational waves exist, proven through astronomical observations. The pulsar was discovered by Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor in 1974 while observing with the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope. Scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993 "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, which gave new possibilities in the study of gravity."

Research in the world and Ukraine

In Italy, a similar project called Virgo is close to completion. Japan also intends to launch a similar detector in a year, India is also preparing such an experiment. That is, in many parts of the world there are similar detectors, but they have not yet reached that sensitivity mode so that we can talk about fixing gravitational waves.

"Officially, Ukraine is not a member of LIGO and also does not participate in the Italian and Japanese projects. Among such fundamental areas, Ukraine is now participating in the LHC project (LHC - Large Hadron Collider) and in CERN" (we will officially become a member only after paying the entrance fee) ", - Bogdan Gnatyk, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, told LIGA.net.

According to him, since 2015 Ukraine has been a full member of the international collaboration CTA (MChT-Cherenkov Telescope Array), which is building a modern telescope multi TeV wide gamma range (with photon energies up to 1014 eV). "The main sources of such photons are precisely the vicinity of supermassive black holes, the gravitational radiation of which was first recorded by the LIGO detector. Therefore, the opening of new windows in astronomy - gravitational-wave and multi TeV new electromagnetic field promises us many more discoveries in the future,” adds the scientist.

What's next and how new knowledge will help people? Scholars disagree. Some say that this is just another step in understanding the mechanisms of the universe. Others see this as the first steps towards new technologies for moving through time and space. One way or another, this discovery once again proved how little we understand and how much remains to be learned.

Astrophysicists have confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein about 100 years ago. They were recorded using detectors of the LIGO gravitational wave observatory, which is located in the United States.

For the first time in history, humanity has recorded gravitational waves - fluctuations in space-time that came to Earth from the collision of two black holes that occurred far in the Universe. Russian scientists also contribute to this discovery. On Thursday, researchers talk about their discovery around the world - in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and other cities, including Moscow.

The photo shows an imitation of the collision of black holes

At a press conference in the office of Rambler & Co, Valery Mitrofanov, the head of the Russian part of the LIGO collaboration, announced the discovery of gravitational waves:

“We are honored to participate in this project and present the results to you. I will now tell you the meaning of the discovery in Russian. We have seen beautiful pictures of LIGO detectors in the US. The distance between them is 3000 km. Under the influence of a gravitational wave, one of the detectors shifted, after which we discovered them. At first, we saw just noise on the computer, and then the buildup of the mass of the Hamford detectors began. After calculating the data obtained, we were able to determine that it was the black holes that collided at a distance of 1.3 mlrd. light years from here. The signal was very clear, he got out of the noise very clearly. Many told us that we were lucky, but nature gave us such a gift. Gravitational waves have been discovered - that's for sure."

Astrophysicists have confirmed rumors that using the detectors of the gravitational wave observatory LIGO they were able to detect gravitational waves. This discovery will allow humanity to make significant progress in understanding how the universe works.

The discovery took place on September 14, 2015, simultaneously by two detectors in Washington and Louisiana. The signal arrived at the detectors as a result of the collision of two black holes. So much time it took scientists to make sure that it was gravitational waves that were the product of the collision.

The collision of holes occurred at a speed of about half the speed of light, which is approximately 150,792,458 m/s.

“Newtonian gravity was described in flat space, and Einstein translated it into the plane of time and suggested that it bends it. The gravitational interaction is very weak. On Earth, the experience of creating gravitational waves is impossible. They were able to detect them only after the merger of black holes. The detector has shifted, just imagine, by 10 to -19 meters. Don't touch it with your hands. Only with the help of very precise instruments. How to do it? The laser beam with which the shift was detected is unique in nature. The second-generation LIGO laser gravity antenna went into operation in 2015. The sensitivity makes it possible to register gravitational perturbations about once a month. This is the advanced world and American science, there is nothing more accurate in the world. We hope that it will be able to overcome the Standard quantum limit of sensitivity, ”explained the discovery. Sergey Vyatchanin, an employee of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University and the LIGO collaboration.

The standard quantum limit (SQL) in quantum mechanics is a limitation imposed on the accuracy of a continuous or many times repeated measurement of a quantity described by an operator that does not commute with itself at different times. Predicted in 1967 by V. B. Braginsky, and the term Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) was proposed later by Thorne. The SQL is closely related to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation.

Summing up, Valery Mitrofanov spoke about plans for further research:

“This discovery is the beginning of a new gravitational wave astronomy. Through the channel of gravitational waves, we expect to learn more about the Universe. We know the composition of only 5% of matter, the rest is a mystery. Gravitational detectors will allow you to see the sky in "gravitational waves". In the future, we hope to see the beginning of everything, that is, the cosmic microwave background of the Big Bang, and understand what exactly happened then.”

For the first time, gravitational waves were proposed by Albert Einstein in 1916, that is, almost exactly 100 years ago. The equation for waves is a consequence of the equations of the theory of relativity and is not derived in the simplest way.

Canadian theoretical physicist Clifford Burgess previously published a letter saying that the observatory had detected gravitational radiation caused by the merger of a binary system of black holes with masses of 36 and 29 solar masses into an object with a mass of 62 solar masses. The collision and the asymmetric gravitational collapse last for fractions of a second, and during this time, up to 50 percent of the mass of the system goes into gravitational radiation - the ripples of space-time.

A gravitational wave is a gravitational wave generated in most theories of gravity by the movement of gravitating bodies with variable acceleration. In view of the relative weakness of gravitational forces (compared to others), these waves should have a very small magnitude, which is difficult to register. Their existence was predicted about a century ago by Albert Einstein.

Valentin Nikolaevich Rudenko shares the story of his visit to the city of Kashina (Italy), where he spent a week on the newly built "gravitational antenna" - Michelson's optical interferometer. On the way to the destination, the taxi driver is interested in what the installation was built for. “People here think it’s for talking to God,” the driver admits.

– What are gravitational waves?

– A gravitational wave is one of the “carriers of astrophysical information”. There are visible channels of astrophysical information, a special role in "far vision" belongs to telescopes. Astronomers have also mastered low-frequency channels - microwave and infrared, and high-frequency - X-ray and gamma. In addition to electromagnetic radiation, we can register particle flows from the Cosmos. For this, neutrino telescopes are used - large-sized detectors of cosmic neutrinos - particles that weakly interact with matter and therefore are difficult to register. Almost all theoretically predicted and laboratory-studied types of "carriers of astrophysical information" are reliably mastered in practice. The exception was gravitation - the weakest interaction in the microcosm and the most powerful force in the macrocosm.

Gravity is geometry. Gravitational waves are geometric waves, that is, waves that change the geometric characteristics of space as they travel through that space. Roughly speaking, these are waves that deform space. Deformation is the relative change in distance between two points. Gravitational radiation differs from all other types of radiation precisely in that they are geometric.

Did Einstein predict gravitational waves?

- Formally, it is believed that gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein as one of the consequences of his general theory of relativity, but in fact their existence becomes obvious already in the special theory of relativity.

The theory of relativity suggests that due to gravitational attraction, gravitational collapse is possible, that is, the contraction of an object as a result of collapse, roughly speaking, into a point. Then gravity is so strong that light cannot even escape from it, so such an object is figuratively called a black hole.

- What is the peculiarity of the gravitational interaction?

A feature of the gravitational interaction is the principle of equivalence. According to him, the dynamic response of a test body in a gravitational field does not depend on the mass of this body. Simply put, all bodies fall with the same acceleration.

The gravitational force is the weakest we know today.

- Who was the first to try to catch a gravitational wave?

– The gravitational wave experiment was first conducted by Joseph Weber from the University of Maryland (USA). He created the gravitational detector, which is now kept in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. In 1968-1972, Joe Weber made a series of observations with a pair of spaced apart detectors in an attempt to isolate instances of "coincidences". The reception of coincidences is borrowed from nuclear physics. The low statistical significance of the gravitational signals received by Weber caused a critical attitude to the results of the experiment: there was no certainty that gravitational waves could be detected. In the future, scientists tried to increase the sensitivity of Weber-type detectors. It took 45 years to develop a detector whose sensitivity was adequate to the astrophysical prediction.

During the beginning of the experiment before fixation, many other experiments took place, impulses were recorded during this period, but they had too little intensity.

- Why was the fixing of the signal not announced immediately?

– Gravitational waves were recorded back in September 2015. But even if a coincidence was recorded, it is necessary to prove before declaring that it is not accidental. In the signal taken from any antenna, there are always noise bursts (short-term bursts), and one of them can accidentally occur simultaneously with a noise burst on another antenna. It is possible to prove that the coincidence did not happen by chance only with the help of statistical estimates.

– Why are discoveries in the field of gravitational waves so important?

– The ability to register the relic gravitational background and measure its characteristics, such as density, temperature, etc., allows us to approach the beginning of the universe.

The attractive thing is that gravitational radiation is difficult to detect because it interacts very weakly with matter. But, thanks to the same property, it passes without absorption from the most distant objects from us with the most mysterious, from the point of view of matter, properties.

We can say that gravitational radiations pass without distortion. The most ambitious goal is to investigate the gravitational radiation that was separated from the primary matter in the Big Bang Theory, which was created at the moment the Universe was created.

– Does the discovery of gravitational waves rule out quantum theory?

The theory of gravity assumes the existence of gravitational collapse, that is, the contraction of massive objects into a point. At the same time, the quantum theory developed by the Copenhagen School suggests that, thanks to the uncertainty principle, it is impossible to specify exactly such parameters as the position, velocity and momentum of a body at the same time. There is an uncertainty principle here, it is impossible to determine exactly the trajectory, because the trajectory is both a coordinate and a speed, etc. You can only determine a certain conditional confidence corridor within this error, which is associated with the principles of uncertainty. Quantum theory categorically denies the possibility of point objects, but describes them in a statistically probabilistic way: it does not specifically indicate the coordinates, but indicates the probability that it has certain coordinates.

The question of the unification of quantum theory and the theory of gravity is one of the fundamental questions of the creation of a unified field theory.

They continue to work on it now, and the words “quantum gravity” mean a completely advanced area of ​​​​science, the border of knowledge and ignorance, where all theorists of the world are now working.

– What can the discovery give in the future?

Gravitational waves must inevitably form the foundation of modern science as one of the components of our knowledge. They are assigned a significant role in the evolution of the Universe and with the help of these waves the Universe should be studied. The discovery contributes to the overall development of science and culture.

If one decides to go beyond the scope of today's science, then it is permissible to imagine telecommunication gravitational communication lines, jet apparatus on gravitational radiation, gravitational-wave introscopy devices.

- Do gravitational waves have any relation to extrasensory perception and telepathy?

Dont Have. The described effects are the effects of the quantum world, the effects of optics.

Interviewed by Anna Utkina

But I'm more interested in what unexpected things can be detected with the help of gravitational waves. Every time people have observed the universe in a new way, we have discovered many unexpected things that have turned our understanding of the universe upside down. I want to find these gravitational waves and discover something that we had no idea about before.

Will this help us make a real warp drive?

Since gravitational waves interact weakly with matter, they can hardly be used to move this matter. But even if you could, a gravitational wave only travels at the speed of light. They won't work for a warp drive. Although it would be cool.

How about anti-gravity devices?

To create an anti-gravity device, we need to turn the force of attraction into a force of repulsion. And although a gravitational wave propagates changes in gravity, this change will never be repulsive (or negative).

Gravity always attracts because negative mass doesn't seem to exist. After all, there is positive and negative charge, a north and south magnetic pole, but only positive mass. Why? If negative mass existed, the ball of matter would fall up instead of down. It would be repelled by the positive mass of the Earth.

What does this mean for the possibility of time travel and teleportation? Can we find a practical application for this phenomenon, other than studying our universe?

Now the best way to travel in time (and only in the future) is to travel at near light speed (remember the twin paradox in General Relativity) or go to an area with increased gravity (this kind of time travel was demonstrated in Interstellar). Since a gravitational wave propagates changes in gravity, there will be very small fluctuations in the speed of time, but since gravitational waves are inherently weak, so are the temporal fluctuations. And while I don't think you can apply this to time travel (or teleportation), never say never (I bet you took your breath away).

Will the day come when we stop confirming Einstein and start looking for strange things again?

Of course! Since gravity is the weakest of the forces, it is also difficult to experiment with it. So far, every time scientists have put GR to the test, they have got exactly predicted results. Even the discovery of gravitational waves once again confirmed Einstein's theory. But I guess when we start to test the smallest details of the theory (maybe with gravitational waves, maybe with another), we will find "funny" things, like the result of the experiment not exactly matching the prediction. This will not mean the fallacy of GR, only the need to clarify its details.

Every time we answer one question about nature, new ones appear. In the end, we will have questions that will be cooler than the answers that GR can allow.

Can you explain how this discovery might be related to or affect the unified field theory? Are we closer to confirming it or debunking it?

Now the results of our discovery are mainly devoted to the verification and confirmation of general relativity. Unified field theory is looking for a way to create a theory that will explain the physics of the very small (quantum mechanics) and the very large (general relativity). Now these two theories can be generalized to explain the scale of the world in which we live, but no more. Since our discovery is focused on the physics of the very large, by itself it will do little to advance us in the direction of a unified theory. But that's not the point. Now the field of gravitational-wave physics has just been born. As we learn more, we will certainly extend our results to the area of ​​a unified theory. But before running, you need to walk.

Now that we're listening to gravitational waves, what do scientists have to hear to literally kick a brick? 1) Unnatural patterns/structures? 2) Sources of gravitational waves from regions that we considered empty? 3) Rick Astley

When I read your question, I immediately remembered the scene from "Contact" in which the radio telescope picks up patterns of prime numbers. It is unlikely that this can be found in nature (as far as we know). So your version with an unnatural pattern or structure would be the most likely.

I don't think we'll ever be sure of emptiness in a certain region of space. After all, the black hole system we found was isolated, and no light was coming from that region, but we still found gravitational waves there.

As for music... I specialize in separating gravitational wave signals from the static noise that we constantly measure against the background of the environment. If I could find music in a gravitational wave, especially one I've heard before, it would be a prank. But music that has never been heard on Earth... It would be like the simple cases from "Contact".

Since the experiment registers waves by changing the distance between two objects, is the amplitude of one direction greater than the other? Otherwise, wouldn't the readings mean that the universe is changing in size? And if so, does this expansion confirm or anything unexpected?

We need to see many gravitational waves coming from many different directions in the universe before we can answer this question. In astronomy, this creates a population model. How many different types of things are there? This is the main question. Once we have a lot of observations and start seeing unexpected patterns, for example, that gravitational waves of a certain type come from a certain part of the Universe and nowhere else, this will be a very interesting result. Some patterns could confirm the expansion (of which we are very confident), or other phenomena that we are not yet aware of. But first you need to see a lot more gravitational waves.

It is completely incomprehensible to me how the scientists determined that the waves they measured belonged to two supermassive black holes. How can one determine the source of the waves with such accuracy?

Data analysis methods use a catalog of predicted gravitational wave signals to compare against our data. If there is a strong correlation with one of these predictions, or patterns, then we not only know that it is a gravitational wave, but we also know which system generated it.

Every single way to create a gravitational wave, whether it's black holes merging, stars spinning or dying, all waves have different shapes. When we detect a gravitational wave, we use these shapes, as predicted by General Relativity, to determine their cause.

How do we know that these waves came from the collision of two black holes, and not some other event? Is it possible to predict where or when such an event occurred, with any degree of accuracy?

Once we know which system produced the gravitational wave, we can predict how strong the gravitational wave was near where it was born. By measuring its strength as it reaches Earth and comparing our measurements with the predicted strength of the source, we can calculate how far away the source is. Since gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, we can also calculate how long it took for gravitational waves to travel towards Earth.

In the case of the black hole system we discovered, we measured the maximum change in the length of the LIGO arms per 1/1000 of the proton diameter. This system is located 1.3 billion light years away. The gravitational wave, discovered in September and announced the other day, has been moving towards us for 1.3 billion years. This happened before animal life formed on Earth, but after the emergence of multicellular organisms.

At the time of the announcement, it was stated that other detectors would look for waves with a longer period - some of them will be cosmic. What can you tell us about these large detectors?

A space detector is indeed in development. It is called LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). Since it will be in space, it will be quite sensitive to low frequency gravitational waves, unlike terrestrial detectors, due to the earth's natural vibrations. It will be difficult, because the satellites will have to be placed farther from the Earth than a person has ever been. If something goes wrong, we won't be able to send astronauts in for repairs, . To test the required technologies, . So far, she has coped with all the tasks set, but the mission is far from over.

Can gravitational waves be converted into sound waves? And if so, what will they look like?

Can. Of course, you won't just hear a gravitational wave. But if you take the signal and pass it through the speakers, you can hear it.

What should we do with this information? Do these waves radiate other astronomical objects with significant mass? Can waves be used to search for planets or simple black holes?

When looking for gravitational values, it's not just mass that matters. Also the acceleration that is inherent in the object. The black holes we found were orbiting each other at 60% of the speed of light as they merged. Therefore, we were able to detect them during the merger. But now they no longer receive gravitational waves, since they have merged into one sedentary mass.

So anything that has a lot of mass and moves very fast creates gravitational waves that you can pick up.

Exoplanets are unlikely to have enough mass or acceleration to create detectable gravitational waves. (I'm not saying they don't make them at all, just that they won't be strong enough or at a different frequency). Even if the exoplanet is massive enough to produce the necessary waves, the acceleration will tear it apart. Don't forget that the most massive planets tend to be gas giants.

How true is the analogy of waves in water? Can we ride these waves? Are there gravitational "peaks" like the already known "wells"?

Since gravitational waves can move through matter, there is no way to ride them or use them to move. So no gravitational wave surfing.

"Peaks" and "wells" are wonderful. Gravity always attracts because there is no negative mass. We don't know why, but it has never been observed in the lab or in the universe. Therefore, gravity is usually represented as a "well". The mass that moves along this "well" will fall inward; that's how attraction works. If you have a negative mass, then you will get a repulsion, and with it a “peak”. Mass that moves at the "peak" will curve away from it. So "wells" exist, but "peaks" do not.

The water analogy is fine as long as we talk about the fact that the strength of the wave decreases with the distance traveled from the source. The water wave will get smaller and smaller, and the gravity wave will get weaker and weaker.

How will this discovery affect our description of the inflationary period of the Big Bang?

At the moment, this discovery has practically no effect on inflation. In order to make statements like this, it is necessary to observe the relic gravitational waves of the Big Bang. The BICEP2 project believed that it was indirectly observing these gravitational waves, but it turned out that cosmic dust was to blame. If he gets the right data, the existence of a short period of inflation shortly after the Big Bang will be confirmed along with it.

LIGO will be able to directly see these gravitational waves (it will also be the weakest type of gravitational waves we hope to detect). If we see them, we will be able to look deep into the past of the Universe, as we have not looked before, and judge inflation from the data obtained.