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D. Williams

4 articles · 30 co-authors · latest: 2026-06-03

Black hole merger confirms Hawking's area law

A clear signal from the merger of two black holes, each about 33 solar masses, confirmed Hawking's theorem: the final horizon area turned out larger than the sum of the initial ones. This strengthens the link between black hole area and entropy.
arXiv:2509.08054 · 2025-09-09

Tuning Into the Hum of Spinning Stars

If neutron stars had tiny bumps, they would constantly hum with gravitational waves. Using LIGO, scientists searched for that hum from 34 pulsars, the largest search of its kind. No signals were found, which pushes the theoretical limits even lower. The Crab pulsar, for instance, turns less than 0.0
arXiv:2603.25938 · 2026-03-26

Record Haul: 161 Black Hole Mergers in Gravitational Waves

The updated GWTC-5.0 catalog includes 161 recent gravitational-wave bursts from black hole collisions. Thanks to improved detector sensitivity, some signals are now record-breakingly clear, allowing for more precise measurements of black hole masses and stricter tests of relativity. The total number
arXiv:2605.27225 · 2026-05-26

A Cosmic Sketch Without Smudges: JWST Confirms Cold Dark Matter

The JWST peered into the hearts of gravitational lenses — and found not a single smudge expected from lightweight dark matter particles. New data shut down many warm dark matter models and bolster the standard cold scenario. Limits on the half-mode mass and thermal relic mass are among the tightest
arXiv:2606.05277v1 · 2026-06-03