An end in sight in the long search for gravity waves

Our unfolding understanding of the universe is marked by epic searches and we are now on the brink of discovering something that has escaped detection for many years.

The search for gravity waves has been a century long epic. They are a prediction of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity but for years physicists argued about their theoretical existence.

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Forget the silly title “an end in sight”, the great news here is that AIGO, the Australian Gravitational Wave Detector, has continued past the time when the WA Government wanted to pull the plug on the funding.

“The Australian Consortium for Gravitational Astronomy built a research centre on a huge site at Gingin, just north of Perth, in Western Australia, that was reserved for the future southern hemisphere gravitational wave detector.”

“The team has discovered several new phenomena including one that involves laser photons bouncing off particles of sound called phonons. This phenomenon turns out to be very useful as it allows new diagnostic tools to prevent instabilities in the new detectors.”

“The first stage detectors achieved their target sensitivity in 2006”.

“The second stage detectors are expected to begin operating next year.”

Gravitational wave detectors can combine results from all around the world, and the wider the spacing the greater the global sensitivity. By having a detector in Western Australia well away from all the others, overall detection is improved greatly.

The great gravitational wave detector will be LISA, to be constructed in space – but that won’t be ready until at least the year 2034.