- https://www.cells.es/en/media/events/alba-public-events/detecting-gravitational-waves-measuring-changes-in-distances-10000-times-smaller-than-a-proton
- Detecting gravitational waves measuring changes in distances 10000 times smaller than a proton
- 2022-01-25T12:00:00+01:00
- 2022-01-25T13:00:00+01:00
- Alberto Gennai, INFN, Pisa
- What
- events
- When
- Jan 25, 2022 from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Europe/Madrid / UTC100)
- Where
- Virtual seminar
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Alberto Gennai has been directly involved in the design, construction and commissioning of several subsystems of the Virgo interferometer, with the main focus on real time control, seismic isolation and suspended mirrors active control.
Abstract
Gravitational waves are ripples in the space-time that propagate at the speed of light and are produced by massive events like stars collisions or explosions. Building an instrument capable of detecting such feeble signals is a major challenge and today there exist only three detectors around the world with enough sensitivity: the Virgo detector, located near Pisa in Italy and the two Ligo detectors, located in Lousiana and Washington State. With the first detection of gravitational waves from the merging of two black holes by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations in September 2015, a new window on the Universe had been opened. In August 2017 the Virgo and LIGO interferometers detected a GW signal from the coalescence of two stellar mass black holes. Three days later the first neutron star merger observed in coincidence in the LIGO and Virgo detectors triggered a follow-up involving about one hundred of observatories around the world detecting visible light and radio waves: the three GW detectors were able to foresee in which point of the universe a new star was going to show up.
The seminar will briefly describe main issues faced by Virgo to reach such impressive sensitivity.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97730382979
