Einstein telescope

• A number of European institutions have formed the Einstein Telescope Collaboration to build a next generation gravitational wave observatory deep beneath the surface of the Earth.
• CERN has entered into an agreement with the collaboration in 2022, and held a workshop earlier this year.
• CERN is bringing its expertise with underground vacuum chambers to the table.

ABOUT EINSTEIN TELESCOPE

• It is an advanced gravitational-wave observatory, currently in the planning stage.
• It builds on the success of current, second-generation laser-interferometric detectors Advanced Virgo and Advanced LIGO, whose breakthrough discoveries of merging black holes (BHs) and neutron stars over the past 5 years have ushered scientists into the new era of gravitational-wave astronomy.
• The Einstein Telescope will achieve a greatly improved sensitivity by increasing the size of the interferometer from the 3km arm length of the Virgo detector to 10km, and by implementing a series of new technologies.
• The expected sensitivity of the Einstein Telescope will be at least a factor of ten times that of Ligo.

ABOUT CERN

• CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research where scientists probe the fundamental structure of the universe.
• Established in 1954.
• It has 23 member states– 22 members are European countries while Israel is the only non-European nation that has full membership in CERN.
• India is the associate member of CERN.
• CERN is located in Geneva and it is an official Observer to the United Nations (UN).

ABOUT GRAVITATIONAL WAVES

• They are ‘ripples’ in space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe.
• Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
• These cosmic ripples travel at the speed of light, carrying with them information about their origins, as well as clues to the nature of gravity itself.
• The strongest gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as colliding black holes, supernovae, and colliding neutron stars.