A quantum leap that’s been decades in the making

Science enthusiasts and the general public have become accustomed to finding out about cataclysmic events in space such as black holes colliding, as though spotting them was as easy as riding a bike. In fact, scientists only detected ripples from such an event for the first time about four years ago. Forty years of tireless work from a collaboration of thousands of people around the globe went into that breakthrough. Since then, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in the United States and the European Gravitational Observatory's detector in Italy called Virgo have detected the mergers of two black holes, the collision of two neutron stars and possibly also a black hole eating a neutron star. ANU Professor David McClelland is leader of the Australian partnership in Advanced LIGO and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). He and his team of instrument scientists had a big role to play in the discoveries, but their work stands to make an even bigger impact in the future. A paper just published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters outlines exciting results from the team's work to help improve the sensitivity of laser interferometers in the United States that can detect ripples in space and time from these violent smashes in the Universe.