The science benefits and preliminary design of the Southern hemisphere gravitational wave detector AIGO
Date
2008
Authors
Blair, D.
Barriga, P.
Brooks, A.
Charlton, P.
Coward, D.
Dumas, J.
Fan, Y.
Galloway, D.
Gras, S.
Hosken, D.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Conference paper
Citation
Journal of Physics : Conference Series, 2008, vol.122, pp.1-6
Statement of Responsibility
D G Blair, P Barriga, A F Brooks, P Charlton, D Coward, J-C Dumas, Y Fan, D Galloway, S Gras, D J Hosken, E Howell, S Hughes, L Ju, D E McClelland, A Melatos, H Miao, J Munch, S M Scott, B J J Slagmolen, P J Veitch, L Wen, J K Webb, A Wolley, Z Yan and C Zhao
Conference Name
Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves (Amaldi) (8 Jul 2007 : Sydney NSW)
Abstract
The proposed southern hemisphere gravitational wave detector AIGO increases the projected average baseline of the global array of ground based gravitational wave detectors by a factor ~4. This allows the world array to be substantially improved. The orientation of AIGO allows much better resolution of both wave polarisations. This enables better distance estimates for inspiral events, allowing unambiguous optical identification of host galaxies for about 25% of neutron star binary inspiral events. This can allow Hubble Law estimation without optical identification of an outburst, and can also allow deep exposure imaging with electromagnetic telescopes to search for weak afterglows. This allows independent estimates of cosmological acceleration and dark energy as well as improved understanding of the physics of neutron star and black hole coalescences. This paper reviews and summarises the science benefits of AIGO and presents a preliminary conceptual design.