European plans for a new giant gravitational wave detector reach milestoneAlthough it is far from being a done deal the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) gave a boost to plans to build a massive new gravitational wave observatory. European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, which advises European governments on priority research areas, has added the Einstein Telescope observatory (worth 1.9 billion) to its road map of large science projects that are ready for action. The developers hope that the move will provide them with the political support they need to make the Einstein Telescope idea a reality.Although it is not a guarantee of funding, this does show the intention to pursue these goals, according to Harald Lck. Harald Lck is a gravitational wave scientist at Leibniz University Hannover, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, and co-chair the Einstein Telescope steering board. This is more of an official political commitment.The announcement was welcomed by U.S. gravitational-wave physicists as well. They believe it will help them to build two detectors that are larger than the Einstein Telescope, in a project called Cosmic Explorator. The momentum in the U.S. is building, says David Reitze (executive director of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO), and a physicist from the California Institute of Technology.Gravitational wave detectors detect tiny ripples in space when large astrophysical objects like black holes collide and whirl around. Scientists have seen dozens of merging black holes pairs, which are the ghostly superintense gravitational field left behind after massive stars collide to infinitesimal point, spiraling together. They also saw the spectacular explosions caused by the merger of two smaller neutron stars. These are the superdense bodies of middle-weight stars that explode and burn out. Researchers announced this week that they had detected gravitational waves coming from a black hole that swallowed a neutron star twice.Interferometers are huge L-shaped optical devices that detect gravitational waves. Laser light is used to measure the length of interferometer arms with incredible precision. They also look for evidence that space is stretching in one direction more than in the other. LIGO is a pair of interferometers located in the United States. Each arm measures 4 km long. Italy's Virgo detector is 3 km long.Scientists want interferometers that are even more sensitive and larger. LIGO and Virgo are capable of detecting black hole mergers that extend beyond 10 billion light-years. Scientists could detect black hole mergers at the edge of the universe at 45 billion light years away if they had detectors 10x more sensitive. Cosmic Explorer would be made up of one or two L-shaped interferometers, each with 40-kilometer arms. The Einstein Telescope, on the other hand, would be a subterranean triangle that houses six V-shaped interferometers with 10-kilometer arms.Both European and American physicists hope to construct the detectors in the middle of the 2030s. Michele Punturo is a physicist, director of research at Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics, and co-chair of Einstein Telescope steering board. Inclusion in ESFRIs roadmap is a key step towards realizing the Einstein Telescope. Punturo states that Einstein Telescope developers are expected to refine their existing design for the observatory over the next three or four years. He says that they will expand the international collaboration to support this project. The Einstein Telescope team currently receives support from Spain, Italy, Spain, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands.Punturo claims that ESFRI is actually because the European Commission, the European central government, does not have a default mechanism to fund large-scale international projects. (The European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory have their own organizational structures. However, none of these organizations has the scientific expertise required to build a gravitational-wave observatory. ESFRI is run by European Council and includes representatives from national scientific funding agencies. It aims to set priorities for large international facilities in Europe.Punturo states that it is up to the Einstein Telescope team, however, to design the organization to support the project. Punturo suggests that the organization could be modelled after CERN. He says that the ESFRI imprimatur is vital for gaining funding and support from individual countries. The ESFRI roadmap is opening the preparatory stage that should complete all technical, legal and financial steps to get to the point where we can say "OK, we are ready to proceed."Jocelyn Read is a gravitational wave physicist at California State University, Fullerton and a LIGO member. She says that building community is a key part of facility design. She points out that the push for the next generation gravitational wave detectors has become less about competition and more about collaboration. Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer would be the best scientists working together.
