Abstract.The ground-breaking first direct measurement of gravitational waves by the LIGO/VIRGO collaboration has opened up a new window to probe our Universe. After an introduction to the key concepts of gravitational wave physics (theory & experiment) I will focus on the stochastic gravitational wave background. Similar to the better known cosmic
microwave background, this gravitational `white noise' originates from events in our cosmic past, and may carry valuable information about the Early Universe and particle physics at very high energies. As a concrete example of this concept, I will demonstrate how specific couplings of the inflaton (the particle responsible for cosmic inflation) to the Standard Model can be probed by current and planned gravitational wave detectors.
(The slides will be available here)