This will significantly increase the sensitivity of the observatory allowing observation of the first black hole mergers in the Universe.
The US vision for a future gravitational-wave observatory is a souped-up version of the detectors currently employed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
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Most waves ripple the laser far too slightly for the interferometers to notice. A 25-mile-long gravitational wave detector.That's the upshot of a series of talks given here Saturday (April 14) at the April meeting of the American Physical Society. and represents the project's goal to explore the Universe with gravitational waves. "Unless I knew that for some reason [an 8-km detector would be the largest ever realistically possible to build], it's just not worth it," he said.Still, Vitale said, that doesn't mean scientists have to wait 15 to 20 years for the next major phase of gravitational wave results. Cal State Fullerton: G. Lovelace (local PI), J. The next generation of gravitational wave detectors will peer right up to the outer edge of the observable universe, looking for ripples in the very fabric of space-time, which Einstein predicted would occur when massive objects like black holes collide. Evans said there's basically nowhere in Europe big enough, and in the US the options are limited to the region of the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Black Rock desert in Nevada.Those space challenges drive the alternative massive gravitational wave detector design, called the Einstein telescope.
Improving the detection technology in LIGO and Virgo's existing tunnels can improve matters somewhat, Evans said, and there are plans to do that. MIT: M. Evans (overall PI), S. Vitale Already, Vitale said, there are eight working groups preparing a report on the scientific justification for such massive devices, due out in December 2018.One member of the audience asked Evans whether it made sense to build, say, an 5-mile-long (8 km) detector while a true Cosmic Explorer or full-scale Einstein Telescope remains more than a decade away.If he were on a funding committee, he wouldn't approve such a project, because the scientific returns from doubling LIGO's size just aren't that big, Evans said.
[Current detectors, of course, are nothing to sneeze at.
LIGO and Virgo are small enough that the curvature of the Earth wasn't a significant construction challenge, Evans said. [So why do bigger detectors lead to more sensitive searches for gravitational waves? )So why a detector of that size, rather than twice or 10 times as big?At a certain point, about 24.86 miles (40 km) long, Evans said, the light takes so long to move from one end of the tunnel to the other that the experiment can become fuzzy, making the results less precise rather than more.At least as challenging are the costs.
Still, he and Evans both told the assembled scientists that "the time is now" to start working on them. The Cosmic Explorer artwork was created by Evan Hall and shows the large L-shaped detector on a vast open plane with black holes merging in the sky. © "Over 40 kilometers," Evans said, "the trucking distance of dirt [out of the long tunnel] starts to take over costs.
And the laser, traversing that shorter distance slightly faster, demonstrates that the change has happened.But there's a limit to just how fine that measurement can be. In order to understand that, you have to understand how these detectors work.LIGO and Virgo are, as Live Science has previously reported, basically giant L-shaped rulers.