Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

FEATURED ARTICLE REVIEW ARTICLE

B P Abbott1, R Abbott1, R Adhikari1, P Ajith2, B Allen2,3, G Allen4, R S Amin5, S B Anderson1, W G Anderson3, M A Arain6, M Araya1, H Armandula1, P Armor3, Y Aso1, S Aston7, P Aufmuth8, C Aulbert2, S Babak9, P Baker10, S Ballmer1, C Barker11, D Barker11, B Barr12, P Barriga13, L Barsotti14, M A Barton1, I Bartos15, R Bassiri12, M Bastarrika12, B Behnke9, M Benacquista16, J Betzwieser1, P T Beyersdorf17, I A Bilenko18, G Billingsley1, R Biswas3, E Black1, J K Blackburn1, L Blackburn14, D Blair13, B Bland11, T P Bodiya14, L Bogue19, R Bork1, V Boschi1, S Bose20, P R Brady3, V B Braginsky18, J E Brau21, D O Bridges19, M Brinkmann2, A F Brooks1, D A Brown22, A Brummit23, G Brunet14, A Bullington4, A Buonanno24, O Burmeister2, R L Byer4, L Cadonati25, J B Camp26, J Cannizzo26, K C Cannon1, J Cao14, L Cardenas1, S Caride27, G Castaldi28, S Caudill5, M Cavaglià29, C Cepeda1, T Chalermsongsak1, E Chalkley12, P Charlton30, S Chatterji1, S Chelkowski7, Y Chen9,31, N Christensen32, C T Y Chung33, D Clark4, J Clark34, J H Clayton3, T Cokelaer34, C N Colacino35, R Conte36, D Cook11, T R C Corbitt14, N Cornish10, D Coward13, D C Coyne1, J D E Creighton3, T D Creighton16, A M Cruise7, R M Culter7, A Cumming12, L Cunningham12, S L Danilishin18, K Danzmann2,8, B Daudert1, G Davies34, E J Daw37, D DeBra4, J Degallaix2, V Dergachev27, S Desai38, R DeSalvo1, S Dhurandhar39, M Díaz16, A Dietz34, F Donovan14, K L Dooley6, E E Doomes40, R W P Drever41, J Dueck2, I Duke14, J-C Dumas13, J G Dwyer15, C Echols1, M Edgar12, A Effler11, P Ehrens1, E Espinoza1, T Etzel1, M Evans14, T Evans19, S Fairhurst34, Y Faltas6, Y Fan13, D Fazi1, H Fehrmenn2, L S Finn38, K Flasch3, S Foley14, C Forrest42, N Fotopoulos3, A Franzen8, M Frede2, M Frei43, Z Frei35, A Freise7, R Frey21, T Fricke19, P Fritschel14, V V Frolov19, M Fyffe19, V Galdi28, J A Garofoli22, I Gholami9, J A Giaime5,19, S Giampanis2, K D Giardina19, K Goda14, E Goetz27, L M Goggin3, G González5, M L Gorodetsky18, S Goßler2, R Gouaty5, A Grant12, S Gras13, C Gray11, M Gray44, R J S Greenhalgh23, A M Gretarsson45, F Grimaldi14, R Grosso16, H Grote2, S Grunewald9, M Guenther11, E K Gustafson1, R Gustafson27, B Hage8, J M Hallam7, D Hammer3, G D Hammond12, C Hanna1, J Hanson19, J Harms46, G M Harry14, I W Harry34, E D Harstad21, K Haughian12, K Hayama16, J Heefner1, I S Heng12, A Heptonstall1, M Hewitson2, S Hild7, E Hirose22, D Hoak19, K A Hodge1, K Holt19, D J Hosken47, J Hough12, D Hoyland13, B Hughey14, S H Huttner12, D R Ingram11, T Isogai32, M Ito21, A Ivanov1, B Johnson11, W W Johnson5, D I Jones48, G Jones34, R Jones12, L Ju13, P Kalmus1, V Kalogera49, S Kandhasamy46, J Kanner24, D Kasprzyk7, E Katsavounidis14, K Kawabe11, S Kawamura50, F Kawazoe2, W Kells1, D G Keppel1, A Khalaidovski2, F Y Khalili18, R Khan15, E Khazanov51, P King1, J S Kissel5, S Klimenko6, K Kokeyama50, V Kondrashov1, R Kopparapu38, S Koranda3, D Kozak1, B Krishnan9, R Kumar12, P Kwee8, P K Lam44, M Landry11, B Lantz4, A Lazzarini1, H Lei16, M Lei1, N Leindecker4, I Leonor21, C Li31, H Lin6, P E Lindquist1, T B Littenberg10, N A Lockerbie52, D Lodhia7, M Longo28, M Lormand19, P Lu4, M Lubinski11, A Lucianetti6, H Lück2,8, B Machenschalk9, M MacInnis14, M Mageswaran1, K Mailand1, I Mandel49, V Mandic46, S Márka15, Z Márka15, A Markosyan4, J Markowitz14, E Maros1, I W Martin12, R M Martin6, J N Marx1, K Mason14, F Matichard5, L Matone15, R A Matzner43, N Mavalvala14, R McCarthy11, D E McClelland44, S C McGuire40, M McHugh53, G McIntyre1, D J A McKechan34, K McKenzie44, M Mehmet2, A Melatos33, A C Melissinos42, D F Menéndez38, G Mendell11, R A Mercer3, S Meshkov1, C Messenger2, M S Meyer19, J Miller12, J Minelli38, Y Mino31, V P Mitrofanov18, G Mitselmakher6, R Mittleman14, O Miyakawa1, B Moe3, S D Mohanty16, S R P Mohapatra25, G Moreno11, T Morioka50, K Mors2, K Mossavi2, C MowLowry44, G Mueller6, H Müller-Ebhardt2, D Muhammad19, S Mukherjee16, H Mukhopadhyay39, A Mullavey44, J Munch47, P G Murray12, E Myers11, J Myers11, T Nash1, J Nelson12, G Newton12, A Nishizawa50, K Numata26, J O'Dell23, B O'Reilly19, R O'Shaughnessy38, E Ochsner24, G H Ogin1, D J Ottaway47, R S Ottens6, H Overmier19, B J Owen38, Y Pan24, C Pankow6, M A Papa3,9, V Parameshwaraiah11, P Patel1, M Pedraza1, S Penn54, A Perraca7, V Pierro28, I M Pinto28, M Pitkin12, H J Pletsch2, M V Plissi12, F Postiglione36, M Principe28, R Prix2, L Prokhorov18, O Punken2, V Quetschke6, F J Raab11, D S Rabeling44, H Radkins11, P Raffai35, Z Raics15, N Rainer2, M Rakhmanov16, V Raymond49, C M Reed11, T Reed55, H Rehbein2, S Reid12, D H Reitze6, R Riesen19, K Riles27, B Rivera11, P Roberts56, N A Robertson1,12, C Robinson34, E L Robinson9, S Roddy19, C Röver2, J Rollins15, J D Romano16, J H Romie19, S Rowan12, A Rüdiger2, P Russell1, K Ryan11, S Sakata50, L Sancho de la Jordana57, V Sandberg11, V Sannibale1, L Santamaría9, S Saraf58, P Sarin14, B S Sathyaprakash34, S Sato50, M Satterthwaite44, P R Saulson22, R Savage11, P Savov31, M Scanlan55, R Schilling2, R Schnabel2, R Schofield21, B Schulz2, B F Schutz9,34, P Schwinberg11, J Scott12, S M Scott44, A C Searle1, B Sears1, F Seifert2, D Sellers19, A S Sengupta1, A Sergeev51, B Shapiro14, P Shawhan24, D H Shoemaker14, A Sibley19, X Siemens3, D Sigg11, S Sinha4, A M Sintes57, B J J Slagmolen44, J Slutsky5, J R Smith22, M R Smith1, N D Smith14, K Somiya31, B Sorazu12, A Stein14, L C Stein14, S Steplewski20, A Stochino1, R Stone16, K A Strain12, S Strigin18, A Stroeer26, A L Stuver19, T Z Summerscales56, K-X Sun4, M Sung5, P J Sutton34, G P Szokoly35, D Talukder20, L Tang16, D B Tanner6, S P Tarabrin18, J R Taylor2, R Taylor1, J Thacker19, K A Thorne19, A Thüring8, K V Tokmakov12, C Torres19, C Torrie1, G Traylor19, M Trias57, D Ugolini59, J Ulmen4, K Urbanek4, H Vahlbruch8, M Vallisneri31, C Van Den Broeck34, M V van der Sluys49, A A van Veggel12, S Vass1, R Vaulin3, A Vecchio7, J Veitch7, P Veitch47, C Veltkamp2, A Villar1, C Vorvick11, S P Vyachanin18, S J Waldman14, L Wallace1, R L Ward1, A Weidner2, M Weinert2, A J Weinstein1, R Weiss14, L Wen13,31, S Wen5, K Wette44, J T Whelan9,60, S E Whitcomb1, B F Whiting6, C Wilkinson11, P A Willems1, H R Williams38, L Williams6, B Willke2,8, I Wilmut23, L Winkelmann2, W Winkler2, C C Wipf14, A G Wiseman3, G Woan12, R Wooley19, J Worden11, W Wu6, I Yakushin19, H Yamamoto1, Z Yan13, S Yoshida61, M Zanolin45, J Zhang27, L Zhang1, C Zhao13, N Zotov55, M E Zucker14, H zur Mühlen8 and J Zweizig1

Show affiliations


The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves (GWs) of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of GWs holds the promise of testing general relativity in the strong-field regime, of providing a new probe of exotic objects such as black holes and neutron stars and of uncovering unanticipated new astrophysics. LIGO, a joint Caltech–MIT project supported by the National Science Foundation, operates three multi-kilometer interferometers at two widely separated sites in the United States. These detectors are the result of decades of worldwide technology development, design, construction and commissioning. They are now operating at their design sensitivity, and are sensitive to gravitational wave strains smaller than one part in 1021. With this unprecedented sensitivity, the data are being analyzed to detect or place limits on GWs from a variety of potential astrophysical sources.


PACS

04.80.Nn Gravitational wave detectors and experiments

07.60.Ly Interferometers

97.60.Jd Neutron stars

95.55.Ym Gravitational radiation detectors; mass spectrometers; and other instrumentation and techniques

04.70.-s Physics of black holes

Subjects

Instrumentation and measurement

Gravitation and cosmology

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 7 (July 2009)

Received 2 March 2009, in final form 1 May 2009

Published 30 June 2009



  1. LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

    B P Abbott et al 2009 Rep. Prog. Phys. 72 076901

  2. Final report of the on-going key comparison BIPM.QM-K1: Ozone at ambient level, comparison with VNIIM, 2007

    Joële Viallon et al 2008 Metrologia 45 08009

  3. Final report on key comparison APMP.QM-K4.1: Ethanol in nitrogen

    Kenji Kato et al 2008 Metrologia 45 08007

  4. ATLAS Muon Drift Tube Electronics

    Y Arai et al 2008 JINST 3 P09001

  5. Potential for ultrafast dynamic chemical imaging with few-cycle infrared lasers

    Toru Morishita et al 2008 New J. Phys. 10 025011

  6. SiGe wet chemical etchants with high compositional selectivity and low strain sensitivity

    M Stoffel et al 2008 Semicond. Sci. Technol. 23 085021

  7. A crossing–symmetric phase for AdS5 × S5 strings

    Niklas Beisert et al JHEP11(2006)070

  8. Structure and magnetic properties of Mn-doped ZnO thin films

    Jun Zhang et al 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 036210

  9. The resource theory of quantum reference frames: manipulations and monotones

    Gilad Gour and Robert W Spekkens 2008 New J. Phys. 10 033023

  10. A rigorous analysis of high-order electromagnetic invisibility cloaks

    Ricardo Weder 2008 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 065207

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.