The goal of this project is to maximise the sensitivity of advanced GW detectors by suppressing quantum noise, reducing coating losses and understanding and reducing control noises, thereby increasing the rate of detections by more than an order of magnitude. The advanced detectors include Advanced LIGO (aLIGO), the French/Italian observatory Advanced Virgo and the Japanese KAGRA detector. By mid 2020s, the new LIGO-India detector will be added to the network. We will make major contributions to this international effort to ensure our continuing priority access to exciting new astrophysical data, the bedrock upon which GW science is built.
We will focus on three key outcomes: 1. increasing the circulating power and the enhanced injection of squeezing to improve quantum noise limited sensitivity; 2. reducing the impact of coating thermal noise in the mid-frequency band; and 3. reducing the impact of control noise and unknown noise sources in the 10 Hz to 100 Hz band.
The goals of this project are to develop breakthrough technologies that will enable third generation ground-based GW detectors, create a conceptual design for a kilohertz GW detector, and lay the technological foundations for Australia to participate in a space-based GW detection such as LISA. These remarkable future detectors operate in complementary frequency bands ranging from 10 mHz to 5 kHz, will answer key questions about the workings of the Universe: from how galaxies form and evolve to how matter behaves at extreme densities and temperatures.
OzGrav is positioned to contribute enabling technologies to these future detectors so that Australia benefits from the ground-breaking science they will enable. The detectors are also compelling in their own right as they push the limits of optical measurement technology and probe fundamental science. Future detectors may make it possible to place a human-size optomechanical system into its quantum ground state, potentially allowing investigation of how gravitational fields affect quantum systems.
This Key Project has two goals. First, to discover new sources of gravitational waves and their electromagnetic counterparts. Second, to discover and investigate high-energy electromagnetic transients such as fast radio bursts and superluminous supernovae. Together, these discoveries will build a more complete picture of neutron stars, black holes, and their progenitors yielding deep insights into these sources of gravitational waves.
To achieve these aims, we are using a vast array of world-class facilities including LIGO, Radio Telescopes (ASKAP, ATCA, MeerKAT, SKA), Optical Telescopes (SkyMapper, ANU 2.3-metre, and DREAMS, located at SSO, and telescopes at leading international observatories – Keck, ESO, and Rubin), and powerful supercomputing (OzSTAR, Pawsey).
The goals of this project are to determine fundamental cosmological parameters, map the cosmic evolution of the Universe, and explore the astrophysics of massive binary stars. Gravitational waves provide a powerful new tool for mapping the cosmological properties of the Universe and the extreme events that produce them. We will use GW sources as standard sirens to produce an accurate measurement of the cosmic expansion rate, helping to unravel a key unsolved mystery in cosmology. The population of compact binary mergers these GW reveal will transform our understanding of the evolution of massive stars, their binary interactions and star cluster dynamics. Meanwhile we will make use of the dramatically increased sample of localised fast radio bursts over the Centre lifetime to develop a second and completely independent cosmological probe, one that can measure both the average properties of the baryonic content of the Universe and trace the structure of the cosmic web.
The goal of this project is to perform stringent tests of fundamental physics using both the strongest gravitational fields in the universe and relativistic binary radio pulsars. Advances in LIGO technology have meant we are now routinely witnessing the merging of stellar-mass black holes, where the gravitational field at their horizons is ten billion times stronger than in the solar system. Our team’s expertise in general relativity, Bayesian inference, and signal processing are allowing us to test Einstein’s theory in these ultra-strong-field regimes. We are measuring strong-field effects predicted by Einstein’s relativity and providing robust constraints on physics. We are gaining insights from the exquisitely precise timing measurements of relativistic binary pulsars using the MeerKAT, Parkes and ultimately SKA telescopes.
The goal of this project is to measure the properties of bulk matter at nuclear density. Neutron stars harbour the densest bulk matter and most intense electromagnetic fields in the Universe. Observing gravitational and electromagnetic radiation from neutron stars is the only way to study these extreme physical conditions. Studies of this kind probe a rich variety of fundamental physics, including the residual strong force between nucleons, which governs the equation of state of bulk nuclear matter, and phenomena such as nuclear superfluidity and superconductivity. Related astrophysics of fundamental interest includes the masses, spins, and moments of inertia of relativistic stars, and the structure and evolution of their magnetic fields.
