A new chapter has opened in our understanding of the cosmos since the direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, exactly a hundred years after Einstein predicted their existence. These waves are ripples on the spacetime fabric. The information carried with them allow us to probe parts of universe that no telescope on earth has seen before.
My research is rooted among all parts of the machinery that allows us to do astronomy with these gravitational waves. As a numerical relativist, I solve Einstein's Equations on some of world's fastest supercomputers, which allows me to quantify the extreme gravity physics when two black holes collide (see image from my simulation). Being a scientist with the LIGO experiment, which made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, I design search techniques that allows me to find such colliding black holes in the universe. Based on the results from my searches, I provide constraints on the astrophysical population of black holes in our universe. My PhD thesis provided a framework for such end-to-end investigation of black holes in gravitational wave astronomy.
Just as more number of cell phone towers reduces call drops in a city, more LIGO-like detectors on earth help us identify phenomenon in cosmos to which we are currently blind, such as the intermediate-mass black holes formed from the very first generation of stars. I am engaged with two such initiatives - the LIGO detector being built in India (by ~2025) and the proposed space-mission LISA (by ~2034).