LIGO and Virgo are publicly announcing candidate gravitational wave triggers with a high likelihood of astrophysical origin within minutes of the waves arriving in the three detectors (LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, and Virgo).
There are two candidate gravity wave detections after then upgrade LIGO restarted operation on April 1, 2019. One of the notifications was an error.
Final test before the start of the 3rd @LIGO @ego_virgo Observation Run! #AdvancedLIGO and #AdvancedVirgo detectors are starting their 14th Engineering Run today for at least four weeks. #GravitationalWaves @CNRS @INFN_ @_nikhef https://t.co/nt4D3Wy3OS pic.twitter.com/6JUuT7Agty
— EGO-Virgo (@ego_virgo) March 4, 2019
The improved sensitivity means that detections can come from a larger volume of space. This means that there will be more regular and more frequent detections. Future improvements to sensitivity will mean black hole and neutron star mergers from more of the universe will be detected. This will mean in about ten years that detections will occur multiple times per day.
The next A+ design incorporates many of the elements identified in the first DAWN white paper to produce a design with strain sensitivity corresponding to a BNS/BBH range of ∼ 350/2240 Mpc. This would lead to an increase in range of 1.6X and 1.8X respectively for BNS and 20Msun BBH mergers, or alternatively a detection rate increase of 6.4X (BNS) and 4.4X (BBH) with respect to Advanced LIGO. They will use frequency-dependent squeezing and improved test mass coatings for the improvements over the next six years.
Researchers envisage potentially three detector epochs post Advanced LIGO baseline over the next 25 years with working titles A+, LIGO Voyager and LIGO Cosmic Explorer.
After the Advanced Plus detector will be LIGO Voyager. LIGO Voyager would have three times the detection range to a BNS range (to 1100 Mpc). This would have a low-frequency cutoff down to 10 Hz.
It took nearly 50 years of work for the first successful gravity detection. There is now the public database for new candidate gravity wave detections and public notifications of detections. Each notification comes with a skymap indicating the suspected location of the gravity wave event.
There is an apple iPhone app for people who want to get real-time gravitational wave notifications.
Both gravity events appears to be black hole merger events. They undergoing human vetting.
A special week for #blackholes rounds off with a 2nd new @LIGO @ego_virgo candidate event, #S190412m which looks like a binary black hole merger, hot on the heels of Monday’s #S190408an and Wednesday’s amazing @ehtelescope #BlackHolePicture. #O3ishere https://t.co/jIiGKHX4eN pic.twitter.com/ezF53RA65F
— LIGO (@LIGO) April 12, 2019
It took nearly five decades for LIGO to confirm that gravity waves can be detected. https://t.co/DeIfjRdFLg
— Science News (@ScienceNews) June 15, 2018
Where did our new @LIGO @EGO_Virgo signal come from? Yesterday’s skymap says most likely the direction of Cassiopeia, a constellation stargazers can spot as a W in northern skies. But our #GWs traveled *much* further than the light from those stars! More on that tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/cZNTKsaiN8
— LIGO (@LIGO) April 9, 2019
What comes after Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo? Evan Hall of @MIT talked about all the exciting science which can be done—and what new detector technologies we will need to do it. #APSApril pic.twitter.com/3wPgDVVkgi
— LIGO (@LIGO) April 13, 2019
SOURCES- LIGO, Twitter
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Cool science, but I can’t help noticing something else that surely has also caught the eye of science program managers locally and abroad: particle accelerators are so passé. The new hot stuff on high budget physics are gravity wave telescopes.
They are conveniently big and so far, they work very well and the more you spend on them, the more events you can catch.
They have some fundamental physics justification too, given they can hear the echoes and take measurements of events we can never hope to reproduce.
Clearly we need a lunar base so that we can make 200 km long gravity wave detectors.
Its all about the frequency!