ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Knowledge Networks of the Indian Gravitational Wave Physicists in the LIGO Project

• In Event: Science, Politics, and the Nation

English Abstract

The 2016 gravitational wave detection, announced by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), demonstrated that a knowledge network is a crucial component of this discovery. This detection claim was made by approximately 1200 scientists working across distinct parts of the world through their decadal efforts and institutional networks. Here, gravitational waves are a quadrupole moment that can travel at the speed of light through the universe, a predicted consequence of the General Theory of Relativity. In this context, the theoretical contributions of Indian physicists in the post-Newtonian approximation and in data analysis from the 1980s help to detect the first event, GW150914. Their involvement with LSC led to the approval of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) -India project in 2011. Through semi-structured interviews with Indian, European, US, UK, and Australian gravitational wave physicists, as well as an examination of archival material and their scientific publications, this paper investigates three historical aspects of the knowledge networks in Indian gravitational wave physics. The framework of this study is based on the history and sociology of science in the context of network debates. In the first part, I examine historical changes in gravitational wave science since the 1980s, focusing on data analysis and waveform modelling. Second, I discuss the nature of Indian contributions and their networks with French and British physicists. Third, I describe the development of Indian gravitational wave science networks in India and Australia, with a focus on the LIGO-India project. This study concludes that network unification of LSC enabled discovery.

Author

• Blesil T K, Independent Scholar