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  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Mental Health and Wellbeing
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Reports >
      • Annual Reports
      • Industry Success Stories
      • Strategic Plan
    • Member resources
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students >
      • Faces of OzGrav
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
    • How to write a research brief
  • Education and Outreach
  • Events
    • OzFink workshop 2023
    • 2022 OzGrav ECR Workshop and Annual Retreat
    • Upcoming and Past Events
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Newsletter
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us

A short history of gravitational waves

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Download some key facts about black holes and gravitational waves (PDF 1.83MB)

Future upgrades to LIGO Detector

Over the past two years, the NSF-supported LIGO Laboratory has opened the gravitational-wave window on the universe and established the entirely new field of gravitational-wave-enabled multimessenger astrophysics.  These revolutionary achievements were enabled by sub-attometer position measurement technologies made possible over multi-kilometer baselines through the Advanced LIGO detector.  This new initiative, the  "A+ upgrade,” can afford 5 times the gravitational wave event detection rate over the existing Advanced LIGO design. The enhanced capabilities afforded by A+ will be able to, among other science goals, illuminate the origins and evolution of stellar-mass black holes, allow precision tests of extreme gravity, enable detailed study of the equation of state of neutron stars, and permit new tests of cosmology, including fully independent constraints on the Hubble constant.  The A+ upgrade will also foster expanding community participation and enhance opportunities for education and public understanding of science. Both aspects of LIGO technology targeted by A+ are expected to be of keen interest to diverse communities, including quantum optics, quantum information theory, material science, optical technology, precision metrology and physical standards.  
 
The A+ upgrade addresses two technical limitations that have constrained the Advanced LIGO design target sensitivity: quantum mechanical uncertainty, and classical Brownian noise in mirror coatings. The improved A+ instruments should reach observational readiness as soon as mid-2024, enabling LIGO to continue its leadership of the worldwide effort to open and exploit this new mode of observation. The A+ plan builds on the expertise and synergy of the joint international team that successfully delivered Advanced LIGO.  Approximately 35% of A+ hardware will be contributed by UK and Australian LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) groups, along with significant commitments of effort by UK and Australian personnel. These investments echo the crucial and highly successful UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Australian Research Council (ARC) contributions made to Advanced LIGO.
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We acknowledge and pay respects to the Elders and Traditional Owners of the land on which our six Australian nodes stand

​© 2022   The ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational  Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
Banner images: An artist's impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.  Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL
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