GEO 600

GEO 600 is a gravitational wave detector located in Hannover, Germany. This instrument, and its sister interferometric detectors, are by far the most sensitive scientific instruments ever designed. They are designed to detect relative changes in distance of the order of 10^-21, about the size of a single atom compared to the distance from the Sun to the Earth. GEO 600 is capable of detecting gravitational waves in the frequency range 50 Hz - 1.5 kHz.^[1]

Joint science run with LIGO

In November 2005, it was announced that the LIGO and GEO instruments have begun an extended joint science run. The three instruments (LIGO's instruments are located in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford Site, Washington in the U.S.) will collect data for more than a year, with breaks for tuning and updates. This will be the fifth science run of GEO 600. No results were detected on previous runs, but the sensitivity of the instruments (and the quality of the data analysis) is continually improving, and once the data from the current run are analyzed, it is hoped that they will reveal perhaps the arrival at Earth of perhaps two unambiguous bursts of gravitational waves. This would constitute the first direct detection of gravitational radiation, and, in the eyes of many experts, would be one of the most significant milestones in the history of physics.

See also

• See Gravitational radiation to learn more about gravitational radiation.
• LIGO, for the two American interferometric detectors.
• VIRGO, for a competing European interferometric detector.
• TAMA 300, for a Japanese interferometric detector.
• Einstein@Home, for a program you can download which will help the LIGO/GEO teams analyze their data!

References

1. ^ GEO600 Specifications (2007). Retrieved on 2007-06-26.

External links

• GEO 600 home page, the official website of the GEO 600 project.
• Relativity Group, a page describing research at Cardiff University in Wales, including collaboration in the GEO 600 project, includes an excellent list of tutorials on gravitational wave radiation.
• Amos, Jonathan. Science to ride gravitational waves. November 8, 2005. BBC News.

Coordinates: 52°14′49″N, 9°48′30″E