21–30 of 108 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to work in a library and we all had a similar feeling about books. They were all valuable and to be preserved! Objectively, that's not practical. But that base irrational feeling is still useful and important.
Technically we've missed at least four billion years of gravitational wave events, so a week of shutdown for an upgrade isn't going to make a huge difference to that.
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
Given that an observatory costs on the order of ~$1B to build and operate for a few decades, we probably won't see more than five current (second generation) instruments (2x LIGO + Virgo + KAGRA + LIGO India).
There are also two proposed but not yet funded 3rd-generation ground-based instruments ("Cosmic Explorer" and the "Einstein Telescope"), one planned space-based instrument ("LISA"), and early efforts at proposing a future moon-based detector (the Gravitational-Wave Lunar Observatory for Cosmology, the Lunar Gravitational-Wave Antenna, and the Lunar Seismic and Gravitational Antenna).
To get to tens or hundreds of detectors, someone will have to invent a fundamentally different technology that can be produced at dramatically lower cost. Maybe next century...
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
Some quantum-gravity theories predict additional polarization modes that general relativity doesn't, so such measurements may start ruling particular theories in or out.
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
The next stage should be putting them in space. Vibration on earth is a huge problem. Space has a much more stable environment. Also the distance between the laser detectors can be far, greatly enhancing the magnifying power.
note: I worked on the OG LIGO at Hanford in grad school.
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
The article mentions the new KAGRA detector in Japan joining the group. Does anyone know: how does the accuracy improve as more detectors come online? Will we see a day where we have 20, 50, 100 detectors around the globe and events are near-certain because so many detectors see them? Or is the diminishing returns, and 4 detectors is already too many?
The next stage should be putting them in space. Vibration on earth is a huge problem. Space has a much more stable environment. Also the distance between the laser detectors can be far, greatly enhancing the magnifying power.
There are also serious (if obviously longshot) efforts by colleagues of mine to propose moon-based GW detectors: https://indico.ego-gw.it/event/263/
LIGO blows my mind whenever I hear news about it. The sensitivity alone is insane -- it can detect a change in distance between its mirrors 1/10000th the width of a proton. This is the equivalent of measuring the distance to the nearest star (4.2 light years) to an accuracy of 1 human hair . Those are bonkers numbers. How the hell did we even come up with this thing?
Could we be seeing warp drive signatures?