This New AI Program Could Speed Up the Search for Gravitational Waves

A new software program that uses artificial intelligence can help rapidly detect and analyze gravitational waves -- ripples in the cosmic fabric of space-time -- from catastrophic events such as collisions between black holes, a new study finds. The new technique, called deep filtering, can help researchers see cataclysmic events that current software might not detect, such as titanic mergers in the hearts of galaxies, according to the authors of a new paper describing the work. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time. They are generated when any object with mass moves, and they travel at the speed of light, stretching and squeezing space-time along the way. Gravitational waves are extraordinarily difficult to detect, and the ones that scientists can detect are from exceptionally massive objects. Although the existence of gravitational waves was first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, it took over a century for scientists to successfully detect the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to spot the gravitational aftermath of two black holes smashing together.