LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

Abbott, B. et al. (2009) LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Reports on Progress in Physics, 72(7), 076901. (doi: 10.1088/0034-4885/72/7/076901)

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Abstract

The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves (GWs) of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of GWs holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black holes and neutron stars and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech–MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than one part in 1021. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on GWs from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Grant, Mr Alastair and Messenger, Dr Christopher and Hammond, Professor Giles and Hild, Professor Stefan and Barr, Dr Bryan and Sorazu Lucio, Dr Borja and Reid, Professor Stuart and Edgar, Dr Matthew and Tokmakov, Dr Kirill and Veitch, Dr John and Plissi, Dr Michael and Heng, Professor Ik Siong and van Veggel, Dr Marielle and Newton, Dr Gavin and Scott, Dr Jamie and Rowan, Professor Sheila and Kumar, Mr Rahul and Martin, Dr Iain and Robertson, Professor Norna and Cumming, Dr Alan and Cunningham, Dr Liam and Woan, Professor Graham and Nelson, Mr John and Hough, Professor James and Huttner, Dr Sabina and Bassiri, Mr Riccardo and Strain, Professor Kenneth and Jones, Mr Russell and Haughian, Dr Karen and Pitkin, Dr Matthew and Murray, Dr Peter
Authors: Abbott, B., Abbott, R., Adhikari, R., Ajith, P., Allen, B., Allen, G., Amin, R., Anderson, S., Anderson, W., Arain, M., Araya, M., Armandula, H., Armor, P., Aso, Y., Aston, S., Aufmuth, P., Aulbert, C., Babak, S., Baker, P., Ballmer, S., Barker, C., Barker, D., Barr, B., Barriga, P., Barsotti, L., Barton, M., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Bastarrika, M., Behnke, B., Benacquista, M., Betzwieser, J., Beyersdorf, P., Bilenko, I., Billingsley, G., Biswas, R., Black, E., Blackburn, J., Blackburn, L., Blair, D., Bland, B., Bodiya, T., Bogue, L., Bork, R., Boschi, V., Bose, S., Brady, P., Braginsky, V., Brau, J., Bridges, D., Brinkmann, M., Brooks, A., Brown, D., Brummit, A., Brunet, G., Bullington, A., Buonanno, A., Burmeister, O., Byer, R., Cadonati, L., Camp, J., Cannizzo, J., Cannon, K., Cao, J., Cardenas, L., Caride, S., Castaldi, G., Caudill, S., Cavaglia, M., Cepeda, C., Chalermsongsak, T., Chalkley, E., Charlton, P., Chatterji, S., Chelkowski, S., Chen, Y., Christensen, N., Chung, C., Clark, D., Clark, J., Clayton, J., Cokelaer, T., Colacino, C., Conte, R., Cook, D., Corbitt, T., Cornish, N., Coward, D., Coyne, D., Creighton, J., Creighton, T., Cruise, A., Culter, R., Cumming, A., Cunningham, L., Danilishin, S., Danzmann, K., Daudert, B., Davies, G., Daw, E., DeBra, D., Degallaix, J., Dergachev, V., Desai, S., DeSalvo, R., Dhurandhar, S., Diaz, M., Dietz, A., Donovan, F., Dooley, K., Doomes, E., Drever, R., Dueck, J., Duke, I., Dumas, J., Dwyer, J., Echols, C., Edgar, M., Effler, A., Ehrens, P., Espinoza, E., Etzel, T., Evans, M., Evans, T., Fairhurst, S., Faltas, Y., Fan, Y., Fazi, D., Fehrmenn, H., Finn, L., Flasch, K., Foley, S., Forrest, C., Fotopoulos, N., Franzen, A., Frede, M., Frei, M., Frei, Z., Freise, A., Frey, R., Fricke, T., Fritschel, P., Frolov, V., Fyffe, M., Galdi, V., Garofoli, J., Gholami, I., Giaime, J., Giampanis, S., Giardina, K., Goda, K., Goetz, E., Goggin, L., Gonzalez, G., Gorodetsky, M., Gossler, S., Gouaty, R., Grant, A., Gras, S., Gray, C., Gray, M., Greenhalgh, R., Gretarsson, A., Grimaldi, F., Grosso, R., Grote, H., Grunewald, S., Guenther, M., Gustafson, E., Gustafson, R., Hage, B., Hallam, J., Hammer, D., Hammond, G., Hanna, C., Hanson, J., Harms, J., Harry, G., Harry, I., Harstad, E., Haughian, K., Hayama, K., Heefner, J., Heng, I., Heptonstall, A., Hewitson, M., Hild, S., Hirose, E., Hoak, D., Hodge, K., Holt, K., Hosken, D., Hough, J., Hoyland, D., Hughey, B., Huttner, S., Ingram, D., Isogai, T., Ito, M., Ivanov, A., Johnson, B., Johnson, W., Jones, D., Jones, G., Jones, R., Ju, L., Kalmus, P., Kalogera, V., Kandhasamy, S., Kanner, J., Kasprzyk, D., Katsavounidis, E., Kawabe, K., Kawamura, S., Kawazoe, F., Kells, W., Keppel, D., Khalaidovski, A., Khalili, F., Khan, R., Khazanov, E., King, P., Kissel, J., Klimenko, S., Kokeyama, K., Kondrashov, V., Kopparapu, R., Koranda, S., Kozak, D., Krishnan, B., Kumar, R., Kwee, P., Lam, P., Landry, M., Lantz, B., Lazzarini, A., Lei, H., Lei, M., Leindecker, N., Leonor, I., Li, C., Lin, H., Lindquist, P., Littenberg, T., Lockerbie, N., Lodhia, D., Longo, M., Lormand, M., Lu, P., Lubinski, M., Lucianetti, A., Luck, H., Machenschalk, B., MacInnis, M., Mageswaran, M., Mailand, K., Mandel, I., Mandic, V., Marka, S., Marka, Z., Markosyan, A., Markowitz, J., Maros, E., Martin, I.W., Martin, R., Marx, J., Mason, K., Matichard, F., Matone, L., Matzner, R., Mavalvala, N., McCarthy, R., McClelland, D., McGuire, S., McHugh, M., McIntyre, G., McKechan, D., McKenzie, K., Mehmet, M., Melatos, A., Melissinos, A., Menendez, D., Mendell, G., Mercer, R., Meshkov, S., Messenger, C., Meyer, M., Miller, J., Minelli, J., Mino, Y., Mitrofanov, V., Mitselmakher, G., Mittleman, R., Miyakawa, O., Moe, B., Mohanty, S., Mohapatra, S., Moreno, G., Morioka, T., Mors, K., Mossavi, K., MowLowry, C., Mueller, G., Muller-Ebhardt, H., Muhammad, D., Mukherjee, S., Mukhopadhyay, H., Mullavey, A., Munch, J., Murray, P.G., Myers, E., Myers, J., Nash, T., Nelson, J., Newton, G., Nishizawa, A., Numata, K., O'Dell, J., O'Reilly, B., O'Shaughnessy, R., Ochsner, E., Ogin, G., Ottaway, D., Ottens, R., Overmier, H., Owen, B., Pan, Y., Pankow, C., Papa, M., Parameshwaraiah, V., Patel, P., Pedraza, M., Penn, S., Perraca, A., Pierro, V., Pinto, I., Pitkin, M., Pletsch, H., Plissi, M.V., Postiglione, F., Principe, M., Prix, R., Prokhorov, L., Punken, O., Quetschke, V., Raab, F., Rabeling, D., Radkins, H., Raffai, P., Raics, Z., Rainer, N., Rakhmanov, M., Raymond, V., Reed, C., Reed, T., Rehbein, H., Reid, S., Reitze, D., Riesen, R., Riles, K., Rivera, B., Roberts, P., Robertson, N.A., Robinson, C., Robinson, E., Roddy, S., Rover, C., Rollins, J., Romano, J., Romie, J., Rowan, S., Rudiger, A., Russell, P., Ryan, K., Sakata, S., de la Jordana, L., Sandberg, V., Sannibale, V., Santamaria, L., Saraf, S., Sarin, P., Sathyaprakash, B., Sato, S., Satterthwaite, M., Saulson, P., Savage, R., Savov, P., Scanlan, M., Schilling, R., Schnabel, R., Schofield, R., Schulz, B., Schutz, B., Schwinberg, P., Scott, J., Scott, S., Searle, A., Sears, B., Seifert, F., Sellers, D., Sengupta, A., Sergeev, A., Shapiro, B., Shawhan, P., Shoemaker, D., Sibley, A., Siemens, X., Sigg, D., Sinha, S., Sintes, A., Slagmolen, B., Slutsky, J., Smith, J., Smith, M., Smith, N., Somiya, K., Sorazu, B., Stein, A., Stein, L., Steplewski, S., Stochino, A., Stone, R., Strain, K., Strigin, S., Stroeer, A., Stuver, A., Summerscales, T., Sun, K., Sung, M., Sutton, P., Szokoly, G., Talukder, D., Tang, L., Tanner, D., Tarabrin, S., Taylor, J., Taylor, R., Thacker, J., Thorne, K., Thuring, A., Tokmakov, K.V., Torres, C., Torrie, C., Traylor, G., Trias, M., Ugolini, D., Ulmen, J., Urbanek, K., Vahlbruch, H., Vallisneri, M., Van den Broeck, C., van der Sluys, M., van Veggel, A., Vass, S., Vaulin, R., Vecchio, A., Veitch, J., Veitch, P., Veltkamp, C., Villar, A., Vorvick, C., Vyachanin, S., Waldman, S., Wallace, L., Ward, R., Weidner, A., Weinert, M., Weinstein, A., Weiss, R., Wen, L., Wen, S., Wette, K., Whelan, J., Whitcomb, S., Whiting, B., Wilkinson, C., Willems, P., Williams, H., Williams, L., Willke, B., Wilmut, I., Winkelmann, L., Winkler, W., Wipf, C., Wiseman, A., Woan, G., Wooley, R., Worden, J., Wu, W., Yakushin, I., Yamamoto, H., Yan, Z., Yoshida, S., Zanolin, M., Zhang, J., Zhang, L., Zhao, C., Zotov, N., Zucker, M., zur Muhlen, H., and Zweizig, J.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
Research Centre:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research
Journal Name:Reports on Progress in Physics
Publisher:Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
ISSN:0034-4885
ISSN (Online):1361-6633
Published Online:30 June 2009

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
337921UK involvement in advanced LIGOKenneth StrainParticle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)ST/G504284/1Physics and Astronomy
459312Investigations in Gravitational Radiation.Sheila RowanScience & Technologies Facilities Council (STFC)ST/I001085/1Physics and Astronomy