I am presently in Japan, participating in the Gravity and Cosmology workshop at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics on the Kyoto University campus. The big news here is that the Large Cryogenic Gravitational-wave Telescope (LCGT) was just approved for funding! I believe that this is the press release, as witnessed by the exclamation mark at the end of the title (a Japanese speaker will no doubt correct me if I’m wrong). Apparently they have been granted roughly half of their estimated price tag (of >$200 million). This is a critical step, and I am told that once the Japanese government commits funds, it is highly unlikely to change its mind down the road. So LCGT is a huge step closer to becoming a reality.
We have waxed poetic about gravitational-wave detectors before (here, here, and here). These instruments are truly amazing feats of engineering, with the power to unlock a whole new window on our Universe. LCGT would be even more impressive than the current instruments (LIGO and Virgo): it takes its 3-kilometer long power-recycled Fabry–Perot–Michelson interferometer arms, and places them one kilometer underground (to reduce seismic noise, which sets the low-frequency [<10 Hz] noise floor). As if that’s not enough, it also cools its mirrors to ~20 degrees above absolute zero (which reduces thermal noise, which sets the intermediate-frequency [10--100 Hz] noise floor).
As it happens, I am in the midst of finishing a project with Samaya Nissanke (at JPL) and Scott Hughes (at MIT), trying to determine how well various gravitational-wave networks detect gravitational-wave standard sirens (stellar mass black hole and/or neutron star binary inspirals; more on why these are interesting in a future post). In particular, we are finding that adding LCGT to the expected Advanced LIGO-Virgo network increases the number of detected binaries by 50%, and generates more uniform sky coverage. LCGT will substantially enhance our view of the gravitational-wave sky, and will improve the science coming out of all the upcoming gravitational-wave detectors. Congratulations to the Japanese for pushing this observatory forward!
June 25th, 2010 at 8:32 am
So do they have to raise the money privately to make up the deficit?
June 25th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Here’s a translation of the poster. The text in the upper center says “An issue from Einstein for learning more about new space.” The text at the bottom center says, “Gravitational waves.” As for the 2 cartoon characters, the woman is identified as “Dr. Yoko Kirishima,” if I read the really small characters correctly, & the kid is ID’ed as “Little Takuya.” The woman is saying something like “Gee, I wonder what space will look like via gravitational waves.” & the kid is saying something like “Dr. Einstein discovered that gravity waves exist, didn’t he!”
This may not be a press release for the actual detector itself because it’s not mentioned in the poster & neither is any sponsor, such as a scientific or governmental institution. There is nothing whatsoever about those items on this poster so it seems to be more of an announcement, altho I’m not sure what for.
-Steve Turrentine, Ph.D.
Japanese document translator
June 25th, 2010 at 10:56 am
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June 25th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Great news, Daniel. Thank you for the update.
June 27th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
@Non-Believer (1): As I understand it, the University of Tokyo (which is the lead institution) has promised to chip in a substantial sum. And presumably further funds will be requested when the time is appropriate.
@Steve (2): Thanks for the translation! The Japanese most certainly enjoy their cartoons. Did I get the press release right (see the link under “press release”)?
June 28th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Daniel says: “Did I get the press release right (see the link under “press release”)?
I didn’t check that link originally. The text just above the sentence I translated – it’s in blue – means “Announcement” so I guess you could call it a kind of press release. Here’s my offhand translation of the sentence followed by an exclamation mark. It’s dated June 23, 2010.
“Development of a large-scale, cryogenic gravitational wave telescope” has been selected as a targeted support project for the Ministry of Education’s “Leading Edge Research Foundation Project.”
Please note that “Ministry of Education” is the abbreviated name for this ministry. Its complete name is much longer but not relevant here. Also, my wording of the above project may not agree with Tokyo University’s “official” English equivalent. I tried to track it down on the Web but have so far been unsuccessful, so in the interests of time I’m just using my own translation. Note also that “Foundation” could be replaced by “Infrastructure,” changing the connotation slightly. So FYI, FWIW.
-Steve
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Maybe this is a stupid question. But wouldn’t the significant amount of blasting which happens in the Kamioka mine and the large volume of mine landcruisers which go through Kamioka tunnel
have a significant impact on this detector?
July 7th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Interesting news, Daniel. Japan in general well done! Well finance a science. And what at them excellent cars!!!)) whether not so?)
July 8th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Has anybody ever detected “gravity waves”?? I was unaware …
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:44 am
> The big news here is that the Large Cryogenic Gravitational-wave Telescope (LCGT) was > just approved for funding. Apparently they have been granted roughly half of their
> estimated price tag (of >$200 million).
I sure hope this new LCGT observatory succeeds, Gravity probe B did very well!
It seems that if you look at gravity waves as ripples on the surface of a still pond, and the water in the pond as the cold dark empty vacuum of space and a small boat floating on the pond as a LIGO observatory.
Wouldn’t you get a more pronounced signal if the observatory were accelerating and impacting the waveforms?