Recently, the Chinese Pulsar time array research team, which is composed of scientific researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units, used the FAST, Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, to detect the key evidence of the existence of Gravitational wave in the nanosecond range. The relevant papers are published online in the Chinese astronomical academic journal “Astronomy and Astrophysical Research (RAA)”.
According to Einstein’s General relativity, spacetime can be curved. When a mass object accelerates in it, disturbing the surrounding spacetime will produce Gravitational wave. This is just like a stone thrown into water will produce water waves, for which gravitational waves are often called “ripples of time and space”.
Researchers analyzed the data collected by FAST over a period of three years and five months, and found evidence of quadrupole correlation signals with the characteristics of Gravitational wave at the 4.6 Sigma confidence level (the false alarm rate is less than 1/500000).
In the future, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences will give full play to the international leading edge in the accuracy of the Pulsar time measurement of the FAST, accelerate the scientific research of the Gravitational wave detection, accumulate more long-term observation data, gradually publish more accurate detection results, and open a new window for human beings to use the Gravitational wave to explore the universe.