Ilya Mandel (Birmingham) - Gravitational Wave Observatories and LOFT

The LIGO and Virgo ground-based gravitational-wave detectors finished their initial runs in the
fall of 2010, and are currently undergoing upgrades. Their advanced versions should begin
operation around 2015 at sensitivities which should genuinely open up the era of gravitationalwave
astrophysics. Joint gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations of compactbinary
mergers hold particular promise. I will describe the prospects for gravitational-wave
observations, focusing on the potential for multi-messenger astronomy with LOFT.