Gravitational Waves Opening a new window on our universe

Gravitational waves carry unique information about the origins of our Universe and studying them could provide important insights into the evolution of stars, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, neutron stars and black holes.

irectly detecting these waves would, example, would create a ripple in space therefore, be an enormous scientific which would distort a ring of particles Dbreakthrough and UK scientists are of 1km diameter placed on Earth by no CONTACT playing an important role in this worldwide more than one ten-thousandth the size effort. of an atomic nucleus. Fortunately, this Jenny Hiscock ripple can travel huge distances across Programme Manager Particle Astrophysics Detecting a ripple through space and so scientists should be able space-time to detect gravitational waves from, for T: +44 (0)1793 442151 Gravitational waves are produced by an example, the coalescence of neutron star E: [email protected] accelerating mass - be it the coalescence of or black hole binary systems or perhaps a a neutron star binary system, or a person supernova. running for a bus, although the amount For media enquiries please contact: produced in the latter case is infinitesimally Gravitational wave detectors use a +44 (0)1793 442094 small. Unfortunately, detecting technique called laser interferometry. gravitational waves isn’t easy. Although Beams of laser light are reflected they interact with particles, this interaction between effectively freely suspended is extremely weak. Gravitational waves mirrors forming two arms at right angles from a supernova in the Milky Way, for to each other, and the differences in arm length caused by a passing gravitational the US to India, which will significantly Europe, funded both nationally and wave are searched for. The ground- extend the scientific reach of the by ESA, and a revised proposal will be based detectors can cover large areas of detector array. made to the forthcoming ESA L2/L3 call. the sky – more than 40% - at any one Selection as L2 would result in a launch time. The GEO600 experiment and in the late 2020s. STFC funded groups at Advanced LIGO is part of the LIGO the Universities of Birmingham, Cardiff, UK expertise adds to the Scientific Collaboration which uses Cambridge, Glasgow and Southampton chase an international network of detectors have contributed to data analysis STFC supports a number of international to search for gravitational waves. techniques and the study of potential projects on gravitational waves The different projects share data and sources of gravitational waves that including GEO600, Advanced LIGO and perform joint analyses. could be detected by a future space- indirectly, LISA Pathfinder. based gravitational waves mission. The UK has played a leading role in The British-German GEO600 detector the development of instruments and Wider technology impact has arm lengths of 600m and is based systems for the European Space Agency Technology developed in the UK is near Hannover in Germany, operated (ESA) LISA Pathfinder mission. Funding already proving useful outside the field by the Leibniz Universität Hanover, and for the development is currently of gravitational waves. the Universities of Glasgow and Cardiff. provided by the UK Space Agency to • The improved coatings The detector is currently being upgraded groups at the Universities of Glasgow for highly reflecting mirrors have to ‘GEO-HF’ for increased sensitivity at and Birmingham, and Imperial College. applications in inertial navigation and higher frequencies. Launch of LISA Pathfinder is planned time/frequency standards. for mid-2015. LISA Pathfinder will test • The oxide bonding technique for On the ground, LIGO and UK scientists technologies for a future gravitational silicon carbide and other materials is from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, wave detector in space, with arm leading to developments in the optics and the Universities of Cardiff, lengths of a million km. This incredibly and engineering industries. Birmingham, Glasgow and Strathclyde, challenging project has taken many • The novel interferometric sensor, have contributed to the upgrade of the years to be realized and relies on EUCLID, from the University LIGO hardware to form a newer, even extremely accurate interferometric of Birmingham is now being better Advanced LIGO facility, aiming measurement, space-positional commercialized. to increase the detector sensitivity awareness and state-of-the-art • A collaboration with a US company more than tenfold. This consists of technologies for test mass release and aims to apply suspension technology interferometers of 4 km arm length at monitoring. to the oil industry. Hanford in Washington State and at Livingston Louisiana, partially funded A full gravitational waves mission by the STFC. The UK collaboration (known at various points as LISA, eLISA, supplied advanced quadruple suspension or NGO) was proposed by European systems, electronic systems for scientists for the first large scale suspension control and silica blanks (L1) mission of ESA’s Cosmic Vision for the main mirrors of one Advanced Programme. The science case for the LIGO interferometer. The new facility mission was rated very highly, but is now undergoing commissioning programmatic considerations led to and first observations are planned for its non-selection by ESA. Technology 2015. Recently the LIGO international developments in preparation for the full collaboration agreed to relocate one mission are being pursued across of the Advanced LIGO interferometers from the LIGO Hanford Observatory in

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08/08/2014