As the time passes by in research, one can’t help but get intrigued in various different branches of physics because they are all interesting and also very challenging to work in.
In the end of April to the beginning of May of 2015, we had the GraWIToN school in Pisa, Italy. The school took place in the VIRGO site, this was great as we can learn the technical things and see them in action, at least feel them.
The GraWIToN school was focused on providing us large scale view of the field, hence a person involved in gravitational waves research will get the overview of the field, we had lectures from theoretical topics such as astronomy, numerical relativity etc. to experimental topics like high power lasers and control systems. Meeting other GraWIToN fellows was also very refreshing. But the thing that stood in this school was special attention towards outreach. Why it is important? It changed the whole point of view towards science. Plus the multi-disciplinarity of the school gave birth to new ideas.
The past few months have been hectic as well as exciting for me. I have finished the course work in Gran Sasso Science Institute, and now I am moving towards the research that I am suppose to do. I work between Padova and Trento right now; in Padova I learn the details of the cWB (coherent wave-burst) pipeline, which is one of the major pipeline to detect and localise the gravitational waves form the data given to us by the detectors. It is also capable of doing some parameter estimation, which will tell us more about the source. I am currently following the seventh Engineering Run, with both the LIGOs online. My future plan is to learn more about intermediate mass ratio in-spirals (like a neutron star black hole binary system) and use them to develop some fundamental science. I am also interested in doing some work in numerical relativity, for which Trento is a good place as we have a numerical relativity group.