Open Day at GEO600 on 16th June 2019
Visit the gravitational-wave detector near Sarstedt
On Sunday, 16th of June 2019, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the Institute for Gravitational Physics of Leibniz Universität Hannover are inviting people to visit the Anglo-German gravitational wave detector GEO600 near Sarstedt. Between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., researchers at the detector site inform the public about the new era of gravitational-wave astronomy and the crucial contributions of GEO600, a think tank of international research.
Technology development at GEO600
The GEO Collaboration, a team of Max Planck, Leibniz Universität Hannover and UK researchers, has been operating the GEO600 gravitational-wave detector south of Hannover, Germany, since the mid 1990s. GEO600 is a development center for novel and advanced technologies in the international gravitational-wave research community. Many key technologies that enable the unprecedented sensitivity of LIGO and its discoveries have been developed and tested by GEO600.
AEI researchers together with the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. also developed, built, and installed the high-power laser systems at the heart of the LIGO instruments. Crucial improvements in the optical measurement principle such as power and signal recycling where first demonstrated in GEO600 as a large gravitational-wave detector.
Quantum mechanical tricks for the future of gravitational-wave astronomy
GEO600 has developed ”squeezed light” and has been routinely using it since 2010 to suppress fundamental quantum noise and improve sensitivity at high frequencies. Recently, all gravitational wave detectors on Earth have implemented squeezed-light sources such as that of GEO600 to further increase their sensitivity. The Virgo detector in Italy was improved in early 2018 with a squeezed-light source from the Albert Einstein Institute.
International research
GEO600 is jointly operated by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, the Leibniz Universität Hannover and research groups at the Universities of Cardiff and Glasgow. It is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal State of Lower Saxony, the Max Planck Society, the British Science & Technology Facilities Council and the Volkswagen Foundation.