Gravitational wave detection: LIGO-India marks first anniversary since its approval

New Delhi: The mammoth LIGO-India project - a planned collaboration between the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Laboratory (operated by Caltech and MIT) and three Institutes in India - completed a year on Friday since its approval by the Centre.

LIGO-India project, which will be world's third advanced LIGO and the first LIGO lab outside the US is likely to be commissioned in 2024.

"Today is a Friday. Not just any Friday. It is the first anniversary of the LIGO-India project," Tarun Souradeep, Project Coordinator-IUCAA, LIGO-India tweeted.

LIGO project operates three gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Two are at Hanford in the state of Washington, north-western USA, and one is at Livingston in Louisiana, south-eastern USA.

LIGO Hanford in its tweets on Friday said: "We'll be working with Indian colleagues like Tarun Souradeep to build LIGO instrument in India".

LIGO research is carried out by the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration (which includes the GEO Collaboration and the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy) and the Virgo Collaboration in Europe.

LIGO India is a joint scientific collaboration between LIGO laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the US, and three lead Indian institutions, namely, the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.

The LIGO-India project, meant for detecting gravitational waves, will bring considerable opportunities for Indian scientists in instrumentation and development and benefit India in many other ways as well.

The scientific goals of the project are in the area of astronomy and fundamental physics.

Once LIGO-India becomes operational, it will be scientifically managed and operated in collaboration with the US LIGO detectors to optimize the scientific return.

(With IANS inputs)