CaltechAUTHORS
Published March 11, 2019 | Version Submitted
White Paper Open

The US Program in Ground-Based Gravitational Wave Science: Contribution from the LIGO Laboratory

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Abstract

Recent gravitational-wave observations from the LIGO and Virgo observatories have brought a sense of great excitement to scientists and citizens the world over. Since September 2015,10 binary black hole coalescences and one binary neutron star coalescence have been observed. They have provided remarkable, revolutionary insight into the "gravitational Universe" and have greatly extended the field of multi-messenger astronomy. At present, Advanced LIGO can see binary black hole coalescences out to redshift 0.6 and binary neutron star coalescences to redshift 0.05. This probes only a very small fraction of the volume of the observable Universe. However, current technologies can be extended to construct "3rd Generation" (3G) gravitational-wave observatories that would extend our reach to the very edge of the observable Universe. The event rates over such a large volume would be in the hundreds of thousands per year (i.e. tens per hour). Such 3G detectors would have a 10-fold improvement in strain sensitivity over the current generation of instruments, yielding signal-to-noise ratios of 1000 for events like those already seen. Several concepts are being studied for which engineering studies and reliable cost estimates will be developed in the next 5 years.

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Identifiers

Eprint ID
100326
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20191217-095908525

Related works

Describes
http://arxiv.org/abs/1903.04615 (URL)

Dates

Created
2019-12-17
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-06-02
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Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
LIGO , Physics Department , Physics Department , Physics Department
Series Name
Astro2020 Science White Paper