India's Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) has emerged as a crucial player in the groundbreaking discovery of the universe's vibrations caused by ultra-low frequency gravitational waves. The GMRT, based in Pune, was one of the six large telescopes worldwide that contributed to this significant finding, announced by a team of international scientists, including the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA).
The researchers, led by Pratik Tarafdar from The Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, are on the verge of achieving an unprecedented dynamic range that allows them to "listen" to the bass sections of the cosmic gravitational-wave symphony. These waves are believed to originate from colossal black hole pairs, millions of times more massive than the Sun, engaging in a cosmic dance.
Yashwant Gupta, the Centre Director at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in Pune, expressed his enthusiasm at seeing the unique data from the GMRT being utilized for international efforts in gravitational wave astronomy. The team's results mark a crucial milestone in unlocking a new window into the gravitational wave spectrum, brimming with astrophysical discoveries.
The breakthrough findings were made possible through the collaboration of the European Pulsar Timing Array and the Indo-Japanese colleagues of the InPTA. Over a span of 25 years, pulsar data collected from six of the world's largest radio telescopes, including the GMRT, were analyzed. The GMRT, with its upgraded capabilities in 2019, provided over three years of highly sensitive data in the low radio frequency range.
Prof. Shantanu Desai from IIT Hyderabad praised the tantalizing proximity of the EPTA+InPTA collaboration to discovering nano-hertz gravitational waves. He acknowledged the efforts of numerous scientists, including early-career researchers and undergraduate students, in reaching this stage.
The InPTA experiment involved researchers from several institutions in India, including NCRA (Pune), TIFR (Mumbai), IIT (Roorkee), IISER (Bhopal), IIT (Hyderabad), IMSc (Chennai), and RRI (Bengaluru), as well as their counterparts from Kumamoto University in Japan.
Observations were conducted using the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope in Germany, the Lovell Telescope of the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom, the Nancay Radio Telescope in France, the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy, and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands.