The website of the British “Nature” magazine reported on January 22 that India plans to soon start building its own LIGO (laser pointer Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory)-Advanced LIGO (aLIGO), and the site has received final approval. The US$177 million observatory is expected to be completed in 2024 and is expected to increase the sensitivity and accuracy of gravitational wave detection.
Taron Solardeep, a cosmologist at the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) of the University of Pune, who is in charge of the field of gravitational wave science and data analysis of the aLIGO project, said that aLIGO will help scientists achieve three main goals: The accuracy of the source is 5-10 times higher than the existing findings; accurately calculate the size of the black hole; better understand the expansion speed of the universe.
In 2015, the American blue laser pointer discovered for the first time gravitational waves-the radiation and energy produced by two colliding black holes, which confirmed Einstein’s prediction and opened up a new way to study the universe. LIGO consists of two interferometers, each with two 4 kilometers long arms and L-shaped, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, 3,000 kilometers apart.
Since 2016, the Indian team of scientists has been cooperating with American scientists, hoping to build a similar gravitational wave observatory in India. In March 2016, the Indian Ministry of Atomic Energy and its Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the construction of LIGO projects in India. According to the agreement, the American LIGO laboratory will provide a complete set of hardware, design data, etc.; India will provide the required sites, vacuum systems and other infrastructure. The Indian government expects to allocate all funds by 2020. It is reported that the aLIGO Observatory will be built in the Singoli District of Maharashtra State in Western India, and will become the sixth gravitational wave detector in the world.
India’s Minister of Science and Technology Asutoshi Sharma stated that India has strong capabilities in theoretical astronomy. “aLIGO will help Indian astronomers work with global partners to bring new insights into this dynamic field” .