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Gravitational-wave Observatory
A gravitational-wave detector (used in a gravitational-wave observatory) is any device designed to measure tiny distortions of spacetime called gravitational waves. Since the 1960s, various kinds of gravitational-wave detectors have been built and constantly improved. The present-day generation of laser interferometers has reached the necessary sensitivity to detect gravitational waves from astronomical sources, thus forming the primary tool of gravitational-wave astronomy. The first direct detection of gravitational waves made in 2015 by the Advanced LIGO observatories, a feat which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Challenge The direct detection of gravitational waves is complicated by the extraordinarily small effect the waves produce on a detector. The amplitude of a spherical wave falls off as the inverse of the distance from the source. Thus, even waves from extreme systems such as merging binary black holes die out to a very small amplitude by the time they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LIGO Schematic (multilang)
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large observatories were built in the United States with the aim of detecting gravitational waves by laser interferometry. These observatories use mirrors spaced four kilometers apart which are capable of detecting a change of less than one ten-thousandth the charge diameter of a proton. (that is, to Proxima Centauri at ). The initial LIGO observatories were funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and were conceived, built and are operated by Caltech and MIT. They collected data from 2002 to 2010 but no gravitational waves were detected. The Advanced LIGO Project to enhance the original LIGO detectors began in 2008 and continues to be supported by the NSF, with important contributions from the United Kingdom's Science and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richland, Washington
Richland () is a city in Benton County, Washington, United States. It is located in southeastern Washington at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 60,560. Along with the nearby cities of Pasco and Kennewick, Richland is one of the Tri-Cities, and is home to the Hanford nuclear site. History For centuries, the village of Chemna stood at the mouth of the current Yakima River. Today that village site is called Columbia Point. From this village, the Wanapum, Yakama and Walla Walla Indians harvested the salmon runs entering the Yakima River. Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the mouth of the Yakima River on October 17, 1805. Formative years In 1904–1905, W.R. Amon and his son Howard purchased and proposed a town site on the north bank of the Yakima River. Postal authorities approved the designation of this town site as Richland in 1905, naming it for Nelson Rich, a state legislat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanford Site
The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the Hanford Engineer Works and B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb that was used in the bombing of Nagasaki. During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the more than sixty thousand weapons built for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Nuclear technology developed rapidly during this period, and Hanford scientists produced major technological ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livingston, Louisiana
Livingston is the parish seat of Livingston Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,769 at the 2010 census. Livingston hosts one of the two LIGO gravitational wave detector sites, the other one being located in Hanford, Washington. History Like the parish, Livingston takes its name from the jurist Edward Livingston. Livingston was the site of a major train derailment in 1982. On February 11 of 2016, it was officially announced that the LIGO collaboration successfully made the first direct observation of gravitational waves in September 2015. Barry Barish, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for leading this work. Geography Livingston is located at (30.498721, -90.748371). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land. The communities of Doyle and Livingston, combined in 1955 to create the Town of Livingston. Doyle was established northeast of present-day Livingston, located o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainer Weiss
Rainer "Rai" Weiss ( , ; born September 29, 1932) is an American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. He was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group. In 2017, Weiss was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves". Weiss has helped realize a number of challenging experimental tests of fundamental physics. He is a member of the Fermilab Holometer experiment, which uses a 40m laser interferometer to measure properties of space and time at quantum scale and provide Planck-precision tests of quantum holographic fluctuation. In a 2022 interview given to Federal University of Pará in Brazil, Weiss talks about his life and career, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interferometry
Interferometry is a technique which uses the '' interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber optics, engineering metrology, optical metrology, oceanography, seismology, spectroscopy (and its applications to chemistry), quantum mechanics, nuclear and particle physics, plasma physics, remote sensing, biomolecular interactions, surface profiling, microfluidics, mechanical stress/strain measurement, velocimetry, optometry, and making holograms. Interferometers are devices that extract information from interference. They are widely used in science and industry for the measurement of microscopic displacements, refractive index changes and surface irregularities. In the case with most interferometers, light from a single source is split into two beams that travel in different optical paths, which are then combined again to produce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multipole Moments
A multipole expansion is a mathematical series representing a function that depends on angles—usually the two angles used in the spherical coordinate system (the polar and azimuthal angles) for three-dimensional Euclidean space, \R^3. Similarly to Taylor series, multipole expansions are useful because oftentimes only the first few terms are needed to provide a good approximation of the original function. The function being expanded may be real- or complex-valued and is defined either on \R^3, or less often on \R^n for some other Multipole expansions are used frequently in the study of electromagnetic and gravitational fields, where the fields at distant points are given in terms of sources in a small region. The multipole expansion with angles is often combined with an expansion in radius. Such a combination gives an expansion describing a function throughout three-dimensional space. The multipole expansion is expressed as a sum of terms with progressively finer angular featu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Leiden for its defence against Spanish attacks during the Eighty Years' War. As the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands, it enjoys a reputation across Europe and the world. Known for its historic foundations and emphasis on the social sciences, the university came into particular prominence during the Dutch Golden Age, when scholars from around Europe were attracted to the Dutch Republic due to its climate of intellectual tolerance and Leiden's international reputation. During this time, Leiden became the home to individuals such as René Descartes, Rembrandt, Christiaan Huygens, Hugo Grotius, Baruch Spinoza and Baron d'Holbach. The university has seven academic faculties and over fifty subject departments wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mario Schenberg (Gravitational Wave Detector)
The Mario Schenberg (Gravitational Wave Detector, or Brazilian Graviton Project or Graviton) is a spherical, resonant-mass, gravitational wave detector formerly run by the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo, named after Mário Schenberg. Similar to the Dutch-run MiniGrail, the 1.15 ton, 65 cm diameter spherical test mass is suspended in a cryogenic vacuum enclosure, kept at 20 mK; and the sensors (transducers) for this detector/antenna are developed at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), in Sao José dos Campos, Brazil. As of 2016, the antenna has not detected any gravitational waves, and development of the antenna continues. It has been decided that the antenna will be transferred from the University of São Paulo to INPE. See also * List of radio telescopes References {{coord missing, São Paulo (state) Gravitational-wave telescopes Astronomical observatories in Brazil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MiniGrail
MiniGRAIL was a type of Resonant Mass Antenna, which is a massive sphere that used to detect gravitational waves. The MiniGRAIL was the first such detector to use a spherical design. It is located at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The project was managed by the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory. A team from the Department of Theoretical Physics of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, was also heavily involved. The project was terminated in 2005. Gravitational waves are a type of radiation that is emitted by objects that have mass and are undergoing acceleration. The strongest sources of gravitational waves are suspected to be compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes. This detector may be able to detect certain types of instabilities in rotating single and binary neutron stars, and the merger of small black holes or neutron stars. Design A spherical design has the benefit of being able to detect gravitational waves arriving from any direction, and it is sensitive to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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