Tuesday, July 07, 2009

LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

There is a comprehensive overview article on LIGO that just appeared. It's 25 pages long, and I think the first few pages are just the listing of all the authors alone! :)

B P Abbott et al Rep. Prog. Phys. v.72, p.076901 (2009).

Abstract: The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves (GWs) of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of GWs holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black holes and neutron stars and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech–MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than one part in 10^21. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on GWs from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

I can't think of a more complete and up-to-date article on LIGO than this at the present moment.

Zz.
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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 7, 2009 at 10:47 AM

    Uh... where's the link to this paper?

    Or is it as undetectable as a gravity wave?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ZapperZJuly 7, 2009 at 10:51 AM

    I gave the exact reference to the paper. Not every paper is available online. You will have to get it from the journal at a location that has a site-wide subscription to it.

    Zz.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TometheusJuly 7, 2009 at 11:19 AM

    ... you could have linked to it since it is free online until the end of the month...

    For the benefit of the anonymous poster:

    Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol 72, #7

    ReplyDelete
  4. ZapperZJuly 7, 2009 at 11:36 AM

    Sorry. I forgot that IoP still has the policy of free access for the first month.

    Zz.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJuly 8, 2009 at 9:30 AM

    Thank you very much, Tometheus. I appreciate the effort.

    And as a bonus, there is above the LIGO paper a delightful work on the Blues and mathematics!

    ReplyDelete
  6. TometheusJuly 9, 2009 at 11:51 PM

    Good catch! I missed that the first time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. TometheusJuly 9, 2009 at 11:55 PM

    (The blues article is by an Argonne person too :D )

    (Argonnite? Argonnian? Argonnist?)

    ReplyDelete

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