A new LIGO gravitational wave detector to be built in India by 2025

[Shashank]

This will be the world's third LIGO detector.
A new gravitational wave detector to measure ripples in the fabric of space and time is set to be built in India by 2025, in collaboration with universities from across the globe.

The new Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector will add to the two already operational in the US. The LIGO detectors discovered the first gravitational waves produced by two giant merging blackholes last year. The research won a Nobel Prize in Physics this year.

The location for the new detector in India has been selected, and the acquisition has started, said Somak Raychaudhury, Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune. However, the site has not been revealed yet.

“When the detector building is completed in 2025, IUCAA will run it,” Raychaudhury told PTI. The LIGO India partnership is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) through its Newton-Bhabha project on LIGO. The Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore and Institute for Plasma Research in Ahmedabad are in charge of building various parts of the system, said Raychaudhury. The mirrors and detectors required to build the system will be sent from the LIGO collaborators in the US.

A third LIGO detector will help pinpoint the origin of the gravitational waves that are detected in future. The existence of these waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory of relativity.

Massive accelerating objects - such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other - would disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source. These ripples travel at the speed of light through the universe, carrying with them information about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself.

An agreement was officially signed at the British Council offices in New Delhi between a consortium of universities in India, led by the IUCAA and a consortium of UK universities, led by the University of Glasgow. This collaborative programme will enable Indian scientists to work with UK institutes for extended periods of time, with reciprocal visits to the India labs to develop infrastructure and provide onsite training, essential to build the capability to deliver a LIGO-India detector.

“We need hundreds of young people who will not only be involved in building the detector, but also running it after 2025,” said Raychaudhury.

IndIGO, the Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations, is an initiative to set up advanced experimental facilities, for a multi-institutional Indian national project in gravitational-wave astronomy. The IndIGO Consortium includes Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and Delhi University, among others. Since 2009, the IndIGO Consortium has been involved in constructing the Indian road-map for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and a strategy towards Indian participation in realising the crucial gravitational-wave observatory in the Asia-Pacific region.

Source : A new LIGO gravitational wave detector to be built in India by 2025

 

[screambowl]

make INO fully operational first.
There is a lack of talent casing it to be only partially operational plus the environtment ministry causing some hinderance.

 

[RISING SUN]

make INO fully operational first.
There is a lack of talent casing it to be only partially operational plus the environtment ministry causing some hinderance.

India’s LIGO gravitational-wave observatory gets green light
India will soon begin constructing a counterpart to the LIGO gravitational-wave observatory in the United States, after the construction site for the project received final approval.

The observatory, which will cost 12.6 billion rupees (US$177 million) and is scheduled for completion in 2024, will be built in the Hingoli District of Maharashtra state in western India.

The detector will help to expand the area of sky in which gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space time — can be detected and help triangulate data to boost sensitivity and confidence of detection.

An Indian team of scientists has been collaborating formally on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project with US scientists since 2016. In 2015, LIGO’s US detectors made the first discovery of gravitational waves — energy produced and radiated by the collision of two black holes — thereby confirming Albert Einstein’s prediction and launching a new way of studying the Universe.

The Indian gravitational-wave detector would be only the sixth such observatory in the world and will be similar to the two US detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana.

“We can look forward to lots of exciting astronomy,” says Tarun Souradeep, a cosmologist at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, which will lead the project’s gravitational-wave science and the new detector’s data analysis.

Souradeep says that the Indian ‘advanced LIGO’ (aLIGO) is expected to help scientists to achieve three main objectives: to pinpoint the source of gravitational waves five to ten times more accurately than current efforts allow; to make accurate calculations of sizes of black holes; and to better understand the Universe’s rate of expansion.

India is conventionally strong in theoretical astronomy, says Ashutosh Sharma, secretary of India’s Department of Science and Technology. “aLIGO will help Indian astronomers partner with the global community and bring new insights into this vibrant area,” he says.

Collaborative effort
India’s Department of Atomic Energy and its Department of Science and Technology signed a memorandum of understanding with the US National Science Foundation for the LIGO project in March 2016.

Under the agreement, the LIGO Laboratory — which is operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge — will provide the hardware for a complete LIGO interferometer in India, technical data on its design, as well as training and assistance with installation and commissioning for the supporting infrastructure.

India will provide the site, the vacuum system and other infrastructure required to house and operate the interferometer — as well as all labour, materials and supplies for installation.

The IUCAA plans to use the initial seed money from the Indian government of 1 billion rupees for initial land acquisition and levelling, and for improving technical skills of participating Indian astronomers. The Institute for Plasma Research in Gandhinagar and the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore, will also be partners on the project.

Scientists expect the Indian government to release the full project funds by 2020, after the submission of the detailed project report.
India’s LIGO gravitational-wave observatory gets green light

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1301127897076428800

 

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The Union Cabinet has approved a gravitational-wave detector project in Maharashtra costing Rs 2,600 crore, estimated to be built by 2030. Union minister Jitendra Singh stated that a 174-acre land has been acquired in Hingoli district for its development.

LIGO-India, the third observatory of its kind, will be built to match the specifications of the LIGO observatories in the US, and will work alongside them. Currently, the project is being collaboratively worked upon by a consortium of Indian research institutions and U.S. observatories along with various international partners.

The first two LIGO observatories are located in Louisiana & Washington state, US​

The Indian government granted provisional approval for the project in February 2016. The proponents have now identified and assessed a suitable, stable site for the detector, and are now in the planning phase for the observatory.

The L-shaped LIGO instrument boasts two arms, each measuring 4 km long. Laser pulses are fired simultaneously through both arms, bouncing off the mirrors at the ends to return to the vertex. A detector analyzes whether the pulses coincide upon return. Detecting gravitational waves involves recording and analyzing the slightly out of time pulses in the detector produced by their passage.

In extreme environments, like when black holes collide, very massive objects emit gravitational waves. They provide a way to examine the gravitational characteristics of the source, similar to how light can be used to examine its electromagnetic features.

Concept of Operation of the interferometric gravitational wave observations​

Two LIGOs can detect gravitational waves, but a third observatory is needed for better 'triangulation'. Four observatories are even better. Italy and Japan are upgrading detectors with this setup in mind to enhance gravitational wave detection.

The Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology are building LIGO-India in partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and various national and international research institutions. The United States will supply critical lab components valued at approximately Rs 560 crore ($80 million).

Dr. Souradeep announced that the LIGO-India Observatory will contribute to anticipated astronomical and astrophysical gains from the global LIGO network.

Cabinet Approves India's Own LIGO Project - Gravitational-Wave Detector Worth Rs 2,600 Crore To Be Built By 2030

The Union Cabinet has approved a gravitational-wave detector project in Maharashtra costing Rs 2,600 crore, estimated to be built by 2030

swarajyamag.com

 

[jetray]

Maharashtra costing Rs 2,600 crore, e

thats some big money wrt Indian spending. So other than discovering wonders of universe what is the benefit?

 

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India will start building new gravitational wave observatory​

India will soon break ground on a detector that will hunt for tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time.

On April 6, the Indian Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, approved 26 billion rupees ($318 million) to start construction of a new gravitational wave observatory in the western state of Maharashtra. The observatory, which will work in tandem with four similar facilities around the world, is expected to be up and running by 2030.

"In a nutshell, it will add to our astronomical capabilities and will enable us to offer inputs and feedback not only to India but to rest of the world," Union Minister Shri Jitendra Singh said at a briefing(opens in new tab) on April 6, "thereby giving a global role to India through the medium of space technology."

Once ready, India's research facility will join the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) network of observatories that look for disruptions in the fabric of space-time, which are cosmic signals coming from some of the most violent events in the universe. When massive objects like black holes or neutron stars accelerate, their motion creates "waves of undulating space-time(opens in new tab)" commonly known as gravitational waves.

Scientists use LIGO detectors to search for evidence that gravitational waves — which radiate in all directions from their source and squeeze and stretch space-time ever so slightly — have passed by Earth.

For example, back in 2015, LIGO scientists detected, for the first time ever, gravitational waves created by merging black holes. The detection confirmed Albert Einstein's prediction that space and time are not distinct but are instead woven together in a fabric-like structure that curves, stretches and even warps, thanks to the gravity waves created by gigantic objects moving at high speeds, like balls circling each other on a rubber sheet. Scientists have so far detected(opens in new tab) at least 50 such signals from merging black holes and neutron stars.

Each time a LIGO detector picks up a signal, scientists need to confirm that the candidate signal is really from an event in space like merging black holes and not from the many noise sources on Earth like earthquakes, traffic or even the detector itself. So one of the ways they rule out false positives is by looking for similar signals from four LIGO detectors spread worldwide: Twin facilities in Washington State and Louisiana in the U.S., a third detector called Virgo in Italy and a fourth named Kamioka Gravitational-Wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan.

With this network of four detectors, scientists say they can nail down the sources that beam out gravitational waves, no matter where in the sky the objects are located. So they are keen to have all four running together. To make sure that happens and also factor in downtimes, "you really need more than four in a network," according to the LIGO team(opens in new tab). "LIGO India will be the all-important fifth."

LIGO-India, first approved in 2016 as a sister facility to join the group, is a joint effort among three Indian research institutes and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which together operate the U.S.-based LIGO detectors.

Seven years after the project's initial acceptance, the Indian government has now greenlit its construction in Hingoli, a city about 366 miles (590 kilometers) east of Maharashtra's capital Mumbai. The city has reserved 174 acres (70 hectares) of land for the upcoming facility, and the U.S. will provide infrastructure totaling about $60 million, including hardware necessary to build the interferometer itself as well as technical data and training for its design and installation, The Times of India's Surendra Singh reported on April 6 Thursday(opens in new tab).


Once operational, the detector "will enable the dramatic astronomy and astrophysics returns eagerly anticipated from the global network of LIGO gravitational wave detectors in the coming decade," said Tarun Souradeep, director of Raman Research Institute in India and the former spokesperson for LIGO-India, according to The Hindu.

India will start building new gravitational wave observatory

LIGO-India will be the fifth observatory in the network.

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