Gravitational Astronomy News from AIGO

CSIRO Tower onsite

This week the CSIRO erected a tower to take instruments to determine evaporation from Banksia woodland and recharge from the Gnangara groundwater mound within the lease area of the LIGO.

These measurements will enable a better calculation of recharge for this ecosystem than previously available, and monitor how the vegetation is responding to changes in climate and other influences.

Gnangara Mound is now Perth’s most important water resource, and watertables have been falling for several decades. Climate change, altered fire regimes, invasive species, human encroachment and inappropriate land and habitat management all have an impact on the viability and productivity of natural ecosystems, and hence on the services they perform for the planet and ultimately for our supply of fresh water, clean air and other natural resources.  The installations will enable far-reaching and cutting-edge research into fundamental ecosystem processes, in particular understanding the relationship between ecosystem function and water and carbon balances in a changing climate.

The installation will provide infrastructure and opportunities for collaborators and for new initiatives to establish experiments testing ecological theories and response to interventions.  The research undertaken using these facilities will enable the linkage between patterns and processes in natural systems to be better understood scientifically and enable the understanding of what factors may bring ecosystems to threshold states that threaten their sustainability.

For the first time, total evapotranspiration and carbon assimilation will be measured across large areas of woodland in WA.  State of the art instrumentation will be used to measure the water cycle components, rainfall, infiltration, and total evapotranspiration, and carbon fluxes and vegetation structure across each experimental patch.

The knowledge gained will enable improved understanding of ecosystem processes and how these generate ecosystem services, improving our capacity to manage natural resources to balance productivity and biodiversity.

The installation is of 15m mast to mount the instruments above the tree canopy.  Groundwater levels and soil moisture will be monitored to determine the recharge under the woodland. Data will be telemetered via mobile phone back to base to minimise traffic to the site and maintain constant data collection and monitoring of the performance of the instruments. An educational display of the aims of the project and the measurements recorded will be installed at the GDC through the next year. Details of the site will be available soon at http://www.ozflux.org.au/monitoringsites/gnangara/index.html

For any details, including proposals for collaboration please contact Dr Richard Silberstein, richard.silberstein@csiro.au or Phone: 08 9333 6000

www.aigo.org.au visit this website for the latest news and developments on gravity waves

An amazing Offer from America! Read all about it. This would be such a huge opportunity for the Region and Western Australia.

Following below are the LIGO briefing notes.

See the full proposal at http://www.aigo.org.au/. Or else Google LIGO-Australia and look under prospectus. See also a 6-minute video about the project.(Google LIGO-Australia Video

Remarkable Science Opportunity for Australia

LIGO-Australia

Once every few decades Australia gets a remarkable science offer.   The last big one was the Anglo-Australian telescope, offered by Britain, that opened up the southern skies for astronomy in about 1970. Britain invested $16M in this project.

An investment of at least $140M is currently being offered to Australia by the USA, Britain and Germany to build a gravitational wave observatory at Gingin. This is likely to rise to $200M as other countries, particularly India and China, propose to join the project.

This is not a competition: after rigorous assessment and review the offer was approved by the National Science Foundation and President Obama’s  National Science Board and the UK and German proponents have all confirmed their contributions.

This offer is the biggest international science investment in Australia’s history. To accept this exceptional offer will cost Australia at most, an average of $13M per year for 15 years and need have minimal budgetary implications for the next financial year. The funds would be sourced from State, Federal and University sources, and would reduce once international partner contributions are confirmed.

The LIGO-Australia offer is waiting for Australia’s agreement, but it will be withdrawn if Australia does not commit to it. The U.S is asking to see some negotiating interest by October 2011, although funding would not be required until 2013/2014.

The proposal is an outcome of more than 10-years of planning, site development, and development of research infrastructure and educational facilities on the Gingin site, constituting a total investment of about $30M. The LIGO-Australia project will capitalise on that investment.

The project will make Australia an international science hub, analogous to CERN in Geneva, especially drawing participation from regional countries who could not individually support such frontier research.

The observatory, called LIGO-Australia would be installed in Gingin Shire, at the site of the Gravity Discovery Centre and the Gingin Gravity Research Centre, both of which were developed to support the large scale observatory. It is expected to allow the first direct observation of black holes. It combines the most precise mirrors ever created, the largest vacuum ever created, and the world’s most powerful precision lasers. It will revolutionise physics education in Australia and will inspire our young people.

LIGO-Australia will be the most sensitive measuring instrument ever created, able to measure gravitational “sounds” from black holes and the birth of the universe. The sounds which in reality are ripples in space and time, are a billion times softer than the softest sound detectable by the human ear.

The offer is being made because the extra detector in the southern hemisphere will improve all the world’s detectors about 10-fold. Similar instruments are currently being constructed in the USA and Italy. The detector in Australia completes a single world-wide gravitational telescope.

The project has significant implications for science, engineering and innovation (DIISR and the science portfolio), for education (DEEWR), for foreign relations (DFAT) and for Regional Development (DOTARS). It is strongly supported by MPs from all parties.

The project is being led in the USA by California Institute of Technology and Massachussets Institute of Technology. UWA and Caltech have appointed Professor Stan Whitcomb of Caltech to be the acting director of the project. In Australia the project is being led by a consortium of five universities: University of Western Australia, Australian National University, Melbourne, Monash and Adelaide. The US National Science Foundation has briefed the Australian Ambassador to the USA, Hon Kim Beazley, about the project.

The gravitational observatory offers an exciting opportunity for Australian industry. The vacuum pipes will use an innovative energy savings approach that will give WA companies a competitive edge for international projects. Likewise, innovative geothermal cooling technology invented for the existing Gingin facilities will help bring this energy saving technology into the market place. Some of the most sophisticated digital control systems ever created will boost industrial control technology.  Data analysis will use teraflop graphics processors being developed in collaboration with the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope project. Some of the mirrors will be created by CSIRO.

Consortia in India and China have signed MOUs with the Australian team, and lodged funding proposals to join the project. Scientists in Taiwan and Argentina are also interested in joining the project.

A proposal was submitted to the Federal Government Minister for Science Kim Carr by the Five Universities of the Australian Consortium in Feb 2011.

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“Professor Blair, Director of the UWA-based Australian International Gravitational Research Centre, said he and his team were among the world leaders in the race to detect the waves, despite other countries spending hundreds of millions of dollars more on their research.”     Read More

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Excellent article on LIGO Australia! Science article about LIGO Australia

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of nature.  It is the force which structures the Universe. It creates galaxies, stars and planets.  It switches on the nuclear furnaces in stars which bring light and life to the Universe.  It can accumulate indefinitely and create Black Holes.  It shapes space and alters time.  But…. gravity is still shrouded in mystery and its secrets are only now beginning to be uncovered.

Gravity waves are like sounds that travel through space at the speed of light.  Today we are able to see far into the Universe with all sorts of telescopes but so far we are deaf to the sounds of the Universe – we are still unable to hear. Gravity wave technology (as we are researching at the AIGO, adjacent to the GDC) will give us that new dimension:  a completely new spectrum is waiting to be explored, another sense never before imagined.

It took scientists 100 years to explore the electromagnetic spectrum.  The discovery of electromagnetic waves in 1886 spawned a dramatic and unforeseen revolution as the new waves were progressively harnessed for communication, medicine and astronomy.  The harnessing of gravity waves will unleash similar potential, with the promise of bringing equally dramatic changes (inconceivable to us now) that will revolutionise our lives.  The next century will be the century of gravity waves.  At the very least, gravity waves will allow us to unravel the mysteries of the dark side of the Universe from Black holes to the ‘Big Bang’.

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Australia’s Role in Gravity Wave Research

With amazing new technology developed through an intense international collaboration, scientists predict that we will soon be capable of listening in to the birth of the Universe itself.

Detection requires a worldwide array of observatories linked by internet (see list on right).  It is critical to have one in Australia to give a southern arm and three-dimensional coverage.   The first stage of the Australian International Gravitational Observatory is under development at Gingin, Western Australia: thus Australia is already a partner in the global effort.

Australia’s key role in gravity wave research has provided the opportunity to create The Gravity Discovery Centre.  This Centre will allow the public to participate and share in the excitement of discovery.  It is an initiative that will benefit all Australians.

Gravity wave technology has already created a surge of innovation that will bring significant practical and economic benefits to Australia.  For example, the research has already created enhanced radar technology, sapphire clocks, super mirrors, gravity sensors, laser technology, ocean wave monitoring and super-efficient air-conditioners.

Scientific Spin-Offs and Breakthroughs

Radar Oscillators

The improvement is sufficient to allow radars to detect “Stealth Bombers” – aircraft that were previously undetectable.  This technology will also allow commercial aircraft to identify air turbulence faster and more clearly than ever before.  A new Australian industry has emerged based on the commercialization of patented spin-offs from gravity wave research.

The Superconducting Gravity Gradiometer

A gravity gradiometer is a device used in mineral exploration to detect ore bodies through their gravity effects.  Gravity gradiometers can allow rapid airborne exploration, unlike conventional gravity sensors.  The devices need ultra sensitive detection of gravity deflections.  Today the project has been commercialized under contract with The University of Western Australia (UWA).

Coastal Ocean Wave Monitors

UWA gravity wave physicists have developed and patented a land-based device able to accurately monitor coastal ocean waves.  This device can measure the growth of potentially life-threatening swells, saving the need for expensive buoys.  At least 40 Waverider Buoys are used around Australia to monitor ocean waves at considerable expense.  These buoys are expensive to purchase ($140,000 each) and to maintain ($20,000 pa).

The Sapphire Clock

This was invented at UWA for gravity wave research and is the only clock in the world stable enough to allow atomic clocks to reach their ultimate precision.  These are required for the Inter-national Space Station and for the next generation of precision GPS navigational systems.  The clock, which uses pure crystals of synthetic sapphire, is being developed for the above applications funded by and in collaboration with the French LPTF Laboratory of CNRS in Paris.

Ultra Low Energy Air-Conditioning

This greenhouse-gas-minimizing air conditioning concept was invented for the special requirements of the AIGO Observatory buildings.  The device makes use of cool underground water and reduces the total energy requirements to 10% of conventional air conditioning.  The first prototype has been evaluated during the operation of AIGO.  Its eventual commercialization will allow massive air conditioning power savings in domestic and industrial locations across Australia wherever low temperature ground water is available.

Much of the above research has been conducted with the support of the Australian Research Council.