ET is no longer exclusively the dream of Steven Spielberg, but is now also the dream of European physicists. Though the challenge is not to send back home any cute extra-terrestrial, but to detect gravitational waves with a new kind of instrument – the Einstein Telescope (ET) - to be built in the next decade.
The direct detection of gravitational waves – tiny distortions of space-time predicted by Albert Einstein - is one of the most important and fundamental research areas of modern science. Their direct observation will allow us totally new insights into our Universe including clues as to its very beginning, which have been inaccessible to any other technology.
While Europeans are trying hard to discover gravitational waves with the Virgo and GEO600 interferometers (see our previous article), they are planning now a third-generation instrument named ET, which just received 3 million euros from the European Commission to start a preliminary design study. “Observation of gravitational waves would have far-reaching consequences, aside from verifying the General Theory of Relativity: It would become possible to cast an eye on the “early childhood” of our Universe for the first time,” says Harald Lück, deputy scientific coordinator of the ET Design Study. >> E.T. is the long-term future project of ground-based gravitational wave astronomy. With an observed volume a thousand times larger than that of the second-generation detectors, E.T. will record many thousands of events per year, and, in a network arrangement, have an unprecedented sensitivity at 10 Hz to a stochastic gravitational wave background from the Big Bang (Credit: Nikhef / Jo van den Brand / ASPERA).
| (Credit: ASPERA / A.Marsollier)
“Listening” to the Big Bang
Until now observation of the sky is essentially limited to the electromagnetic spectrum (e.g., radio and X-ray telescopes and astronomy in visible light). The information currently available to us can reach us only from a time at least 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Epochs dating back further have thus far remained hidden, as the Universe became transparent for electromagnetic radiation only at that time. The various theories on the early Universe have therefore remained unverified experimentally. The direct measurement of gravitational waves may allow “listening” back as far as the very first trillionth of a second following the Big Bang: This would give us totally new information about our Universe: with gravitational wave astronomy, completely new areas of science will become accessible.
The design study is an important step towards the third generation of gravitational wave observatories, defining the specifications for the required site and infrastructure, the necessary technologies and the total budget needed. “This allows ET to open a new door in gravitational wave research” say Michele Punturo, scientific coordinator of the ET Design Study.
After the completion of the design study and of a subsequent technical preparation phase, the effective construction could begin, probably in the year 2017or 2018, after the second-generation observatories have started operating. The technology required for third generation detectors is being studied in several countries besides Europe, including the USA and Japan. All third-generation detectors that are eventually built will need to perform joint observations together, as is the case for current gravitational waves experiments.
ET is a joint project of eight European research institutes and appears in the ASPERA Roadmap as one of the “Magnificent Seven”. ET? Magnificent Seven? Indeed, the story of the new European telescope for gravitational waves would merit a Hollywood film.
Submitted by Arnaud Marsollier (CERN) >> ET website |
Einstein would have dreamt of it: the Europeans are on the way to study the design of ET, their future gravitational wave telescope, thanks to a 3 million-euro grant funded by the European Commission.
