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I· i' LIGO: A $250 Million Gamble The potential prize would be great: the first glimpses of gravitation al waves. But a messy dispute at Caltech has again raised the question of whether it's too long a shot
I n February 1992. then National Science "I think L1GO could come back [Q grearly fering definitive proof for the existence of ., FoundaLion (NSF) direc[oT Walter Massey haunt the scientific community if we spend black holes. Says Kip Thome. Cal tech theo called in the press to announce that his agency $250 million and see nothing," warns one retical physicist and member of the LIGO had selected areas in Hanford, Washington, astronomer who, like many of the officials team: 'The payoff, when it comes, is so excit and Livingston, Louisiana, as the two sites and scientists interviewed for this article, re ing that it's worm the risk." for an ambitious physics facility: (he Laser quested anonymity. "There's been so much lmerferometer Gravitational-\Vave Obser unharpiness out there about all chis thac I A pink s lip from LlGO vatory, otherwise known as LlOO. Later that don't th ink we will be able to easily fo rget Part of the deb.teover L1GO has been played summer, Congress dramatically stepped up it," adds University of C alifornia, Los Ange- our in the pages of technical journals and the L1GO's budget. approv general media. But one key aspect has re ing S3S million in con mained hidden from publtc view: the ongo struction stan::up funds [0 ing troubles between Caltech experimental scale up from a 40-merer physicist Ronald Drever and the rest of the prmor)'pe dereccof co LlGO team, specifically director Vogr. For tWO 4-kilometer behe the past 2 years or so, Drever has been, in the moths-big enough, words of one Cal tech facu lty member, "fT0- supporters claimed, to :en Out ofUGO" in a messy feud that reaked have a good chance of last year on 6 July, when Dre\'er was flf(~d snaring the fi rst direct from the prOject arparemly without exrb evidence of the gravita nation. "He was thrown off the proj ect. fo rc eJ tional waves predicted to rum in hi::. keys. kicked OUt of the lab, (\nd by Einstein's theory of raId he was persona non grata," says ont! general relatl\,ity. LIGO Calrcch faculry member fam ili ar with tht! seemed well on its W 61 2 SCIENCE · VOL. 160 • )0 APRIL 199) 1984 (Q 1987, Dre\'er, along \\'ith \\1 eis!:' and Thome, made up the steermg commHte e that managed UGO, a task Vogt subse How to Catch a Gravitational Wave quently took over. The root of the current conflict. support R esearchers hoping Detector ers of bmh camps sa)" is a personail[\' clash to snare a graVlta between Voge and Drever, exacerbated bv tional wave with their eonnJCting r~ sea r eh styles and differences 0'[ proposed Laser Inter opinion on ho\\' the project should proceed. fe rometer Gravita Se\'eral sources confirm that Drever feels it is tional-\Vave Obser Mirror toO endv to scale up (Q t\\"o large facilities, varorv (UGO) are "\Vhat worried him most was whether they embarking on one of could do \\'hat they claimed," says one Caltech the most technically Gravity snare, A passing gravitational faculty member. It's nm that Dre"er thinks challenging tasks sci wave distorts space and creates unequal detecting gravitational Wewes is impossible, entists and engineers separation between the mirrors of each arm, which lIGO hopes to detect. these sources say, but that he thinks the LlGO have ever attempted. etton as cu rrently concei\'ed won'r achieve In essence, they hope the needed sensitivity in nrne, For now, to detect the subtle distortions of space-time that Einstein's theory of general relatIvity Drever wants LlGO to commit to an aggres- predicts will be caused by cataclysmic events such as the spectacularly violent collision 51 ve technology development effort, under of twO neutron stars, the mergmg of black holes, or even supernovae. hiS direction, and the construction of a bet If the)' can overcome the controversies swirling around UGO, they will build their ter, perhars 200-meter, prototype. Cal tech's mammoth instruments at two different, widely separated, sites-the redundancy is Tom Domhrello, a member of the recently needed to weed out local false alarms and to ge t a sense of the direction of the source. At formed LlGO m'erslght committee headed each site, high-power lasers will fire down twO identica14-kilometer-long vacuum pipes, lw former Jet propulsion Laboratory director 4 feet in diameter and perpendicular to each other, At the ends of both pipes, test Lew Allen, hints at this debate: "If we settle masses fitted \,,'ith mirrors will reflect the beams back and forth thousands of times before the techOIcal questions that exist be[\\'een returning them Si mu ltaneously to a detector, the raTtles, all [these rroblemsJ will go away," If researchers can control seismic vibrations and a variety of other noise sources that Dre \'er'~ firing also provoked 8. battle :-It could cause a minute difference in the gaps between the test masses-an incredibly C:llrech over academ ic ireedom, and acc llrd difficult task-those tWO be::J. ms of light would normnlly travel the same distance and mg w both surrorte-rs and critiCS 01 LlGO, it would emerge in phase, Bm if a pilssing gravltanonal wave strayed rhrough the device, has been a major dlYersion for the proJecr's kn(l\\"n as an interferometer, warping space and creating unequal sep::J.rat!ons in each m.1I1<1gement. The bnttle ~egan in Sert~m arm, the t\\'O beams would arrive at the detector out of phase, The in terfe rence pattern ber 1992, \\'hen Dre,'er flied:l complaint With this would create would provide infonnatlon about the strength, shape, and poiari<:Jtion the acadenllc freedom ;"tnd tenure (ommir· of the Qra\'ltational wave, re e, all elecred ( SCIENCE · VOL 260 • 30 ArRIL 1993 613 these extremely small signals from seismic, can always say, 'Do more work,'" commen[5 a china shop that we have to deal With. \YJ e thermal, and photon noise. Although he has Whitcomb, adding that the LIGO team is have no ability to influence It any longer. Ie's called LlGO fa scinating and a worthwhile continuing an aggress l\'e technology devel a fait accompli," says U niversin' of Califor pursuit at some Faint, T yson argues for con opment effort even as it moves ahead With nia, Berkeley, astronomer Marc Davis, who unued sma ll -scale research and technology construction. chairs a new NRC panel on asrronomy and development before deciding whether ro scale Bu t Wi th all that uncertainty, say critiCSof astrophysics thar is mean t to pronde a up LIGO's 40-meter prototype ro tWO full the project, LlGO is a long wa\' fro m living followup to the Bahcall report. Such opm scale 4-kilometer facilities. up to the O-Observatory-in Its name. Ions can be rraced to the strong perception Even the project's staunchest supporters LlGO has ne\'er been endorsed by the as that LlGO has a favored sratus among se\' acknowledge that moving ahead is risky. "Ac tronomy communtty, they pomt out, It was, eral influential members of C one:ress, whose cording to the best estimates, we probably fo r example, conspicuously absent from a pri states the sites are located tn. l ~ particular, wouldn't detect these [coalescing neutron a my list of astronomy projects for the 1990s Speaker of the House Thomas Folev of Wash starsJ" with the initia l inter- ington and Senate appropriations subcom fe rometers, admits Stanley 16 mittee chairman J. Bennett Johnston are seen 10. , --- --.,.------, Whl[COmb, LlGO depmy di as the "protectors" of L1GO. rector. But there's a chance .,. Last year, for insrance, the appropnation c. that the lOittal fac il ity will do 10.17 < ~ committees balked at allowing NSF and the the trick. and it ma y pick up ~ ~ L1GO managers m reduce their 1993 con "n more powerful speculative 0 srruction srartup request for the rroject from '"c. <; sources. say supporters-and if 0 '" 538 mi ll ion to $20 million, in order to mmi nm, the money won't have '"<; m!::e the impact on NSF's small investiga n ~ been wasted. "It's vastly mis (J) mrs. The c ommittee ~ urdered NSF to spend §; ><- understood that LIGO is a one 10.19 ~ [he full amoum on LI GO. A comt'lromise has (J) <; C ><- shm deal. \Ve're paYing up .~ 3 now been reached, howe\'er. R~ bert Eisen (ront for 3 long-term facility." ~ stein, heJd of NSF's physics di\'lsion, told iii 3 sa ~ts MIT's Weiss. pOlllting out 10.20 Science last week. LIGO will indeed he cut that 80% or morl! of the 5250 down to 520 mi ll ion thiS year, plus S5 mill ion mtllion will he :i rene on an f(lr R&D, In the expectatton th<'lt Congrcs~ expensive vacuum system and will nprrornate 504.3 million to ~4S mil hun och er construction costs, not in 1994. Cmics of LlGO argue the agree un Interferomcters, which arc ment only Jelays the ram. "\Ve're gn ln~ [(1 10.22 chear In cnmpmisnn and can fa ce thc :;aml' Issues :111 on~r Scientists Chase Gravity's Rainbow fl ation theory, a popular scenario for the uni verse's first fraction of a second, which posits A ccording to the theory of relativity, when Smoot, it would help to sharpen theorists' an ultra-rapid burst of expansion in the new ever a massive object accelerates, it makes picrure of the beginning of the universe. It born cosmos. Inflation makes specific predic waves that gently ruffle the fabric of space would also be strong indirect evidence of the tions about the density fluctuations in the and time. The bIggest upheaval of all. (he BIg reality of gravity waves, which LlGO aims to early universe. To test those predictions, cos Bang, supposedly sent out an unmatched detect directly. mologists need to know how much of the burst of these "gravity waves"-waves that, The prospect of seeing gravity waves from irregularity in the cosmic background is due because they have been traveling since the be the Big Bang emerged just a year ago, when to gravity waves, so they can subtract it out. ginni ng: of time, now arc across the uni verse. Smoot and hiscoUeagues, analyzing data from Success won't take the luster off experi In a popular essay, astrophysicists George (he CosmIc Background Explorer (COBE) ments such as LlGO-except perhaps in the Smoot of the Lawrence Berk eley Laboratory satellite, discerned small temperature flu c public eye. Indeed, says National Science and Paul Steinhardt of the University of tuations in this nearly perfect radiation bath Foundation (NSF) phYSICS dIrector Roben Pennsy lvania borrow from writer Thomas (Science. 1 May 1992. p. 61 2). At the (I me Eisenstein, a Carnegie press-release promis Pynchon and call the pri mordial waves they attributed these bumps to tiny density ing (mistakenly) that Smoot was going to an "gravity'S rainbow.1> Smoot and Steinhardt fluctuations in the infant universe, which may nounce the first observation of gravity waves are ready [0 chase that rainbow, and they know have acted as seeds for the growth of galaxies brought phone calls to NSF asking whether JUSt the place to look: in the microwave back and clusters 0[-galaxies. Now, after re-analyz the astrophysicists had scooped LIGO. ground. the afterglow of (he Big Bang. ing meoretical predictions, Smoot and Stein Notachance, says Weiss. So far, he points In a press conference last week at the hard( say that as much as half of the bumpI out, "there are no new measurements and no Carnegie Institution o(Washington, Smoot ness could be atttibutable to gravity waves. new data analysis." Even after Smoot and explained that graVity waves rolling outward But they say they can't yet disentangle company do their analysis, says Weiss, he from the Big Bang may have left marks on density fluctuations from the signature ofgrav doesn't believe it will clearly disentangle the the cosmic background. The marks would ity waves. Doing so will [3ke a comparison of effects of grav ity waves from density fluctua be subtle and easi ly confused wi th other fa im microwave data taken by the COBE satellite, tions. And in an y case, says Weiss, LlGO-a irregularities. But by comparing maps of the balloon-borne detectors, and ground-based pair of 4-kilometer-long laser interrerom rad iation made by different instruments, instruments at the South Pole. Each detector eters- is meant to gather direct evidence of Smoot says, it might be possible to identify measures fluctuations on different size scales. grav ity waves emanating from sources in the the signature of the primordial gravity waves. COBE measures only large-scale fluctuations, current universe, such as supernovae or coa There are plenty of researchers-even while other experiments are sensitive to finer lescing galaxies. No matter how good Smoot some affiliated with Smoot-who say Stein scales. On those scales, the fluctuations caused and Steinhardt's analysis, say Weiss and oth hardt and Smoot's quest is something that by gravity waves should fad e while those ers; the cosmic microwave background won't will remain on the far side of the rainbow. caused by density fluctuations should grow yield anything that convincing. Says Massachusetts Institute of Technology more pronounced. So if gravity waves made a Steinhardt agrees that he and Smoot aren't astrophysicist Rainer Weiss, who has worked major contribution, the microwave back about to learn much about gravity waves with Smoot on studies of the cosmic micro ground's bumps should look less prominent themselves. "We are us ing what we know wave background, "h's total speculation. " on smaller scales than on large. about gravity wa ves to learn about inflation And participants in the $210 million Laser Teasing out the numbers will take 3 or 4 and cosmology," he says. "We do not want to Interferometer Gravitational Observatory years, says Steinhardt. "But ultimately one pretend we are learning anything fund amen (LIGO), which aims to detect gravity waves should be able to detect how much is gravity tal about grav ity waves here .... 1Weiss] is direc tly, are quick ro point out that the pair waves and how much isn't." right-If you want to see a gravity wave in hasn't yet offered any new results yet. But if If they succeed, Smoot and Steinhardt say action, you need to use U GO." theif quest succeeds, say Stemhardt and their result should provide a good test of in- -Faye Flam SCIE NCE • VOL. 260 • 23 APRIL 1993 493 , . = .t . 3' jill • edited by CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON Sky's the Limit for g detect gravity waves, may have Women's Health Groups ::::; had a conflict of imerest. "The You'd think that after wresting three Europeans, in some sense, S805 million from Congress for have to collaborate with LIGO," women's health in 1993-includ says one disgrumled Caltech pro· ing $210 million in new funding fessor. In any case, Drever's days for breast cancer research (see p. with LIGO appear over-he is 1068)-women's groups would now negotiating with Caltech be sitting back to celebrate a job over funding to conduct inde well done. Not quite-they say pendent research. they've only just begun. Earlier this month the Congressional Fraudbuster Caucus fo r Women's Issues re Foreswears Food leased a budget request for 1994 When officials at the National that asks for $1.05 billion fot wo Institutes of Health (NIH) an men's health research and ser nounced last month that they vices, including a $67 million were closing down the contro raise for breast cancer research, Say goodbye. Physicist Ronald Drever is not welcome at UGO's prototype. versial fraud busting operation of the Women's Health Initiative, NIH sciemists Walter Stewart and other programs at [he Na Divorce Splits L1GO's new oversight committee, headed and Ned Feder (Science, 16 April, tionallnstituresofHealth (NIH). 'Dysfunctional Family' by former Jet Propulsion Labora p. 288), researchers believed that A ltogether, the request would T ime to give up hope that the tory direcmr Lew Allen, brought a long, st range chapter in NIH be 3l % over this year's budget, combatants of the bitter- baule in fou r consultants familiar with history was coming {Q an end. which was itself 81 % over 1992. within the Laser Interferometer gravity wave detection- Uni But now the tale has taken a new Are these figures just pie in the Gravitational-Wave Observatory versity of Colorado's John Hall, twist: Stewart has stopped eating. sky? Women's aJvocmes don't (LIGO) project might shake France's Allain Briller, Germany's To proteSt NIH's lock-up of the think so. They poim out that hands and make up? That's the Karsten Dammann, and SCOt pair's misconduct files and the more women are senring in Con way it looks now that a four-man land's James Hough-to review treatment given various other gress than ever before and filling outside review ream has declared research proposals put forth by misconduct cases and issues, k~y budget-setting positions. Nor that Cahech physicist Ronald Drever and the LIGO team and Stewart last week started a water do women's groups think the Drever, who cofounded the proj determine how the twO sides only hunger strike. Jmount they're asking for is OUt~ ect, and the rest of the L1GO could co-exist productively. Stewart began fasting on 10 rageous. "We're trying to be rea team at Caltech and MIT are, in Easier said than done, it seems. May, the day NIH officials had sonable," says a congressional the words of one insider, "a dys T he consultants concluded that the locks changed on the lab staffer who works on women's is functional family that needs proposals of Drever and the he shared with Feder at the Na sues. Indeed, she says,"we're low to be split up." LIGO team were simply incom tional Institute of Diabetes and bailing it" this year because of That opinion may end an ugly patible and recommended that Digestive and Kidney Diseases concerns about the deficit. In the chapter for the .250 million proj Drever be kept off the project and (NIDDK). The twO have smce future, women's advocates say, ect, which has been embroiled in allowed to pursue an indepen drawn up a list of demands (hey they hope to increase women's imernecine battles since Drever dent research effort, a poSit ion want met, including reinstate health spending yet more. "This was effectively fired a year ago by the Caitech administration has ment to cheir former jobs and is JUSt the beginning," says an management (SCience, 30 April, now endorsed. access to their files, which Stew other staffer. "We're raring to go. " p. 612). When a faculty commit That hasn't made everyone art says comain data submitted In contrast, basic biomedical tee found Drever had been inap happy. Drever supporters charge by whistleblowers and scientists research groups appear to be set propriately dismissed, Caltech pres· [hat the hearing wasn't the fair wrongly accused of fraud. The ting their sights lower with every ident Thomas Everhart pledged arbitration that was promised and statement also demands an "in day. Some 100 educational, sci to integrate Drever back into the that some of the consultams, who stitutional commitment to get to entifiC, and medical organizations project. So last monch, LIGO's work on international efforts to [he bottom of why these injus se nt a lener to Congress ea rl ie r tices occur so frequently." this month asking fot just $400 Short List for NIH Director Job L. Earl Lawrence, acting million more than the presi deputy ditecror of NIDDK, says Who will run the National Institutes of Health? With just over a month to dent's barely cost-of-living $10.7 go before Director Bemadine Healy is due to leave, officials at the that he has not yet seen the billion tequest for NIH. That's Department of Health and HUman Services, NIH's parent agency, say statement. But he says he's "con $600 million less than they were the candidates have been narrowed to four. Butonlythree names keep cerned" for Stewart. "I can only asking for just 2 months ago. Why surfacing: Ruth Kirschstein, the long-lime director of NIH's National hope [Stewan] will decide to pur the retreat? Research advocates Institute of General Medical Sciences, who was trained as a virologist: sue his concerns in a more stan say they're be ing realistic: Con Nobelist Harold Varmus of the University of California, San FranciSCO, dard way." What if NIH refuses gress is in the mood for deficit who codiscovered cellular oncogenes; and Herbert Pardes, dean of the the request? "That would be a reduction, and basic research just Columbia Un iversity College of Physicians and Surgeons and a psy shame," Scewarcsays, adding that doesn't have the same political chiatrist who was the director of the National Institute of Mental Health he "can't say exactly" what he from 1978 to 1984. suppOrt as women's issues. would do then. SCIENCE ' VOL. 260 • Zl MAY 199) 1063 ity as the cornerstone of the office. "Without not happy about ie" law that even has people who objected I it,n he says, "there wouldn't be any purpose Because of this, reformers are concerned the law change downright enthusiastic ahm forthe [restructured] OAR." there may be attempts to circumvent OAR's the revamped OAR: the coord inating COlT In practice, the budget authority means authority. On 11 February, Ammann, mittees. These five committees-etiololZ the OAR will be able to tilt an institute's Gonsalves, Harrington, and six others wrote and pathogenesis, epidemiology and narur: balance of clinical and basic research, or re Health and Human Services Secretary hisrory, therapeutics, vaccines, and beha\ adjust the amount of money given to behav Donna Shalala and urged her to "exert con ioral research-will set the NIH 's AIDS re ioral research institutes versus institutes that tinued vigilance" on this poine "[S!ome of us search agenda and oversee the whole pro foc us on treatments or vaccines, or reappor received repons that both NIH staff and con gram. "There's a considerable vi rrue to tho tion money to make clinical sa mples from gressional appropriations staff opposed [Q coordinating committees," says Var mu~ epidemiological studies more accessible. changes in the status quo lobbied [the Office who hopes Paul attracts top-notch scientist But so me researchers who fought the of Management and Budged , and may con to sit on them. "They could be great." OAR legislation as it went through Con tinue to maneuver during the FY 1995 bud Paul stresses that OAR plans to m OV t gress, including Vannus, continue to worry get process, to disburse AIDS monies directly carefully. And it may, h e says, even find thm that the budget authority might add another to the inst itutes, as was done in (he past ," everything "is being exceedingly well done.' layer of bureaucracy and slow the transfer of they wrote. If this and other parts of the new If that's the case, says Paul, "I'm not here tr funds to intramural and extramural investi law are not enforced, they warned, "the make changes JUSt to make changes.)! Then gators_ "I'm still a little uncomfon able about Administration's only major AIDS research aga in , Pau l also hopes to slow the epidemic, the way money is moved," Varmus says. "It's initiative will be in tatters." which makes settling for the St(ltuS quo an going to create some problems, and I know Though the budget authority is still a unlikely outcome. some of the appropriators [in Congress! are touchy issue, there is one aspect to the new - Jon Cohen ______GRAVITy A STRONO My ____---r~,,__.....,....,.--- _:_:-____,,__------LlGO Director Out in Shakeup as U.S. spokesman for a mag netic-monopole detector be Caltech physicist Rochus (Robbie) Vogt has until Vogt came up wi th an ing built under the Italian spent much of his career thinking about acceptable man.:lgernent plan, Apennine mountains at gravity waves, (he ripples from such cataclys including how to accommo Gran Sasso (Science, 3 Sep mic phenomena as the mergi ng of black dme outside scientists. InJan tember 1993, p. 1276)-but holes that are predicted by Einstein 's theory uary the congressional appro promises to put in as much of relativity. And for 7 years he lobbied first priations committees thac ap time as LlGO requires . Vogt his colleagues, then the National Science prove NSF's budget, citing has been offered the chance Foundation (NSF) and Congress, to do those concerns about man ro remain as project director something no one had done before: bu ild a agement, told NSF to cur $8 under Barish, says Hall Daily, facility sensitive enough to measure these million from this year's Caltech's director of govern tiny perturbatiOns in marrer. This month, in planned $43 million budget. ment relations. Vogt says he Hanford, Washington, Vogt'S dremn will The crisis apparently came to would have no qualms work· take a big step closer to reality when bull (t head during a 17 January New man. Caltech's Barish ing for Barish, whom he dozers break ground on the Laser Interfero meeting at NSF, when NSF takes charge at lIGO. called a "first-rate physicist," meter G ravitational-Wave Observawry told Vogt that LlGO needed but thelt it remains ro be seen (L1GO), a $250 million experiment. a "coherent plan" to develop a user commu if there is still a "meaningful" role for him But the ceremony will be birrers\veet for nity. Vogt was "less inclined to do" that than to play in the project. Vagt, for it will mark an unwilling passing of NSF wished, says Berley. In the meantime, LIGO is moving 1366 SCIENCE · VOL. 263 • II MARCH 1994 \