Physicists and astronomers meet at the 11th Belgian-Dutch Gravitational Waves Meeting

On 23 and 24 October 2023, the eleventh edition of the Belgian-Dutch Gravitational Waves Meeting took place in Maastricht. Over 120 scientists attended this annual meeting, which aims to bring together physicists and astronomers from Belgium, the Netherlands and the Aachen region (Germany) to inform each other about recent developments and new projects.

The meeting began with a keynote lecture by Gemma Janssen of Astron. She spoke about detecting gravitational waves with pulsar timing, the first evidence for which was found this summer. Afterwards, speakers presented the current status of the major gravitational-wave programmes, such as the currently running LIGO/Virgo/Kagra detectors, the planned space-mission LISA, and the vision for a new European detector, the Einstein Telescope. In more than 60 contributions, talks and posters then presented the large variety of projects and experiments that are ongoing at many universities and research institutes of Belgium and the Netherlands.

This year’s meeting was organised by the Department of Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics of Maastricht University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering.