What are gravity waves ?

How can we detect gravitational waves?
The effect of gravitational waves is very small and hence difficult to measure. A waves passing through the Earth would be expected to contract space in one dimension and expand it in another. But only by a factor of 1 in 10^21.

Over this distance the detectors are looking for changes in length of less than the diameter of a proton !
In order to remove false readings from local events like seismic activity etc two or more detectors separated by thousands of miles are needed. The LIGO facility has two sites in the US separated by two thousand miles. Add to that the GEO 600 facility in Germany and VIRGO in Italy and we have a good array of detectors, capable of detecting gravitational waves.
What could gravitational waves tell us?
Detection of gravitational waves would be further confirmation of Einstein's Theory of General relativity, and would tell us something about the predicted fundamental particle associated with gravity, the graviton.
We could also learn more about the universe, especially those catastrophic events such as colliding black holes. Perhaps the effects of the big bang itself will be detectable through gravitational waves still propagated through the universe (analogous to the microwave background radiation).
Gravitational waves observatories will potentially tell us more about the universe we live in and the laws that govern it. Unfortunately it will not provide spectacular images that capture the publics imagination, like Hubble does.
How you can help?
You can get involved in this research by signing up for the einstein@home project. Just like the well known SETI@home the idea is to use spare processor capacity on your home PC to analyse data from LIGO / GEO 600 and look for anomalies in the data. The processed data is returned to the project team for further analysis if necessary.
Links
LIGO Homepage
GEO 600 Homepage
Wikipedia Gravitational Waves
Einstein@home
Chris
ReplyDeletethere was a double page spread in the Independent last Wednesday (I think) about the search for G Waves.
Jerry
Thanks for that Jerry. I've tracked the article down here.
ReplyDeleteAlso available at the UK Independent site, but you'll have to pay for it there.