About

Starting from mid September 2015, the Advanced  Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) became operative. In August 2017, another gravitational wave (GW) interferometer,  Advanced-Virgo has joined the LIGO network.

Up to 2017, GW trigger alerts to the astronomical community were regulated by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed by the  Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) on May 2014 in order to participate to follow-up observations of GW candidate events with the sharing of proprietary information.

Since May 2015, the INAF team GRAWITA (GRAvitational Wave Inaf TeAm) is working to make possible a prompt observational campaign to GW alert from LIGO/VIRGO collaboration (LVC). To this aim, GRAWITA has several actived proposals to VST, LBT, TNG, REM, ASIAGO, SRT etc. for optical/NIR and radio follow-up. The exploitation of high-energy space-based facilities is also planned.

Since the start of the third LVC run (spring 2019), GW triggers will be publicly released. To face the large competition in the field and to improve the chances of accessing to observational time, GRAWITA has built up an extended network of international collaborations.

GRAWITA brings together expertise across optical, near-infrared, and high-energy astrophysics, enabling a coordinated and rapid response to GW triggers and transient alerts. By combining observational capabilities, data analysis, and theoretical interpretation, the collaboration plays a key role in the identification and characterization of electromagnetic counterparts of compact-object mergers.

Principal Investigator

The Principal Investigator (PI) has the operational responsibility of realizing the highest-level decisions of the Science Board. The PI is the Chair of the SB and has the administrative governance of the project.

The current PI of the project is:

Maria Grazia Bernardini (INAF – OAB)

Science Board

The Science Board (SB) has the governance of the project, the responsibility to lead the project and take decisions aimed at obtaining the scientific results described in the original ‘unsolicited’ INAF project: Gravitational Wave Astronomy with the first detection of adLIGO and adVIRGO experiments (attached n.1). The SB has the authority to decide the scientific governance and management of the project. The SB selects the leaders of the Research Unit (RU) and the scientific Working Groups. The SB has the final responsibility of taking decisions in case of disputes.

The current SB of the project is:

• Manuel Arca Sedda (GSSI)
• Maria Grazia Bernardini (PI; INAF – OAB)
• Maria Teresa Botticella (INAF – OACn)
• Riccardo Ciolfi – Deputy: Nancy Elias-Rosa (INAF – OAPd)
• Sergio Cristallo – Deputy: Eleonora Loffredo (INAF – OAAb) 
• Andrea Melandri (INAF – OAR)
• Maura Pilia (INAF – OACa)
• Andrea Rossi – Deputy: Filippo D’Ammando (Polo di Bologna)

Working Groups

• WG1 24H/7d OPERATION TEAM, Leader: P. D’Avanzo
• WG2 WIDE FIELD SEARCH, Leader: F. Getman
• WG3 CHARACTERIZATION & FOLLOW-UP in Optical NearIR bands, Leader: S. Piranomonte
• WG4 RADIO Follow-up, Leader: M. Giroletti
• WG5 HIGH ENERGY Prompt and Follow-up, Leader: A. Bulgarelli
• WG6 THEORETICAL MODELS, Leader: M. Bulla
• WG7 COMMUNICATION & OUTREACH, Leader: A. Adamo

Members

The GRAWITA team, as June 2026, is composed by the following members:

INAF OA-d’Abruzzo:

M. Cantiello, S. Cristallo, F. De Luise, G. Raimondo, L. Tartaglia, D. Vescovi, M. Bulla (UniFE), M. Bezmalinovich, M. Buccheri, A. Fiore, E. Loffredo

INAF OA-Roma:

A. L. Antonelli, E. Brocato, R. Carini, A. Carosi, G. Israel, M. Limongi, A. Melandri, A. Papitto, S. Piranomonte, A. Stamerra, L. Stella, V. Testa, V. D’Elia (+SSDC), A. Giunta (+SSDC), B. Patricelli (UniPI), F. Carotenuto, F. Onori, E. Pappalardo, F. Ragosta, A. Simongini

INAF OA-Capodimonte (Napoli):

M. T. Botticella, M. Della Valle, A. Grado , F. Getman, L. Izzo, L. Limatola, V. Petrecca, I. Salmaso, D. Farias, P. Schipani

INAF OAS-Bologna, UniBO:

L. Amati, A. Bulgarelli, R. Campana, F. Cusano, M. Dadina, G. De Cesare, G. Lanzuisi, E. Maiorano, L. Masetti, L. Nicastro, E. Palazzi, D. Romano, A. Rossi, G. Stratta , E. Torresi, D. Vergani, A. Cimatti (UniBO), M. Brusa (UniBO), M. De Pasquale (UniME), M. Moresco (UniBO), M. Talia (UniBO), N. Borghi, S. Paramvir, N. Parmiggiani

INAF IRA-Bologna:

A. Adamo, F. D’Ammando, M. Giroletti, G. Migliori, M. Orienti, R. Paladino, T. Venturi

INAF OA-Padova:

S. Benetti, E. Cappellaro, R. Ciolfi, N. Elias-Rosa, L. Tomasella, M. Mapelli (UniPD), A. Perego (UniTN), A. Reguitti, G. Valerin, A. Pavan, M. Pais, E. Dreas

INAF OA-Brera:

M. G. Bernardini, S. Campana, S. Covino, P. D’Avanzo, G. Ghirlanda, O. S. Salafia, B. Sbarufatti, T. Sbarrato, G. Tagliaferri, M. C. Baglio, R. Brivio, G. Delucchi, M. Dinatolo, M. Ferro, S. Giarratana, F. Guidolin, G. Illiano, A. Mei, M. E. Ravasio, C. Salvaggiozi, C. Salvaggio

INAF OA-Cagliari:

M. Burgay, A. Corongiu, D. Perrodin, M. Pilia, A. Possenti, A. Carleo, M. Cinus, J. Debnath, F. Iraci, M. Pili, P. Tarafdar, M. Trudu

GSSI L’Aquila:

M. Arca Sedda, S. Ascenzi, B. Banerjee, M. Branchesi, A. Chopra, A. Ierardi, S. Macera, A. Maselli, G. Oganesyan, S. Ronchini, F. Santoliquido, P. Tiwari, C. Ugolini

Additional members:

G. Greco (Univ. Perugia), F. Longo (INFN – Trieste), F. Matteucci (UniTS/AO-TS), F. Pannarale (Univ. Sapienza), R. Salvaterra (IASF – Milano), S. Savaglio (Univ. Calabria), M. Spera (SISSA)

Image credit: Simonnet, A. / LIGO / Caltech / MIT / Sonoma State University (2017), Merging Black Holes, Science Photo Library.