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Einstein Telescope
The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed next-generation, gravitational-wave (GW) detector in a new underground facility [ET home page]. It will achieve a sensitivity to GWs vastly superior to the current GW detectors LIGO and Virgo. Key factors are the increased baseline of 10km (compared to 3km for the Virgo detector and 4km for the LIGO detectors), increased light power inside the arms, and cryogenics to cool the suspended test masses and the suspension fibers. Furthermore, ET will extend the observation band to lower frequencies, i.e., down to a few Hertz. Essential for this purpose is to construct the detector at an extremely quiet site since noise produced in ET by the environment contributes most strongly at low frequencies. In Europe, such a low-noise environment can only be guaranteed at remote underground sites. This also impacts the detector configuration. It was found that a so-called xylophone configuration of ET with two separate interferometers, one optimized for low frequencies, one for high frequencies, is the best way to realize an observation band that ranges from a few Hertz to a few thousand Hertz [ET detector configuration].
The widening of the observation band together with the sensitivity improvements will make it possible to study GW sources over cosmological scales and at the same time study the properties of GW sources with unprecedented accuracy [ET science case]. It will be possible to explore phenomena of extreme gravity, matter under extreme conditions, observe the complete population of stellar-mass binary black holes, and carry out combined, multi-messenger observations with telescopes. The hope is that ET will be part of a global network of GW detectors including other next-generation facilities like the US Cosmic Explorer [Cosmic Explorer], which will further increase the science that can be done through GW observations [3G science case].
At the Gran Sasso Science Institute, the GW group is involved in experimental and design studies of the instrument, in the development of data-analysis techniques as well as the evaluation of the science capacity of the ET detector configuration, and the group also develops the science case in combination with potential future EM facilities like THESEUS [THESEUS], E-ELT [E-ELT], or VRO (formerly LSST) [VRO].
Site Characterization and Evaluation
Site-evaluation parameters
Results from Sardinia
R&D
Newtonian Noise
Physics with Einstein Telescope
Cosmology: Probing the Early Universe
Electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational waves
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