Discovery of gravitational waves, with Indian participation

The world sees such big-bang discoveries in about 30 years, says a UK-based academic who is a part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) that discovered gravitational waves in September 2015. Given its importance, the find will spawn new study, research and career options in astrophysics, astronomy, theoretical physics and high-precision experiments with the presence of a gravitational wave observatory in the country. Last month, the Union cabinet approved a project to set up the facility in association with the US-based LIGO Laboratory run by Caltech and MIT. 

“Our students will have access to this observational facility (LIGO-India) on a regular basis through, for example, summer projects, research and internships,” says Bala R Iyer, chairperson, IndIGO consortium, India’s initiative in gravitational-wave observations and visiting professor, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences-Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR). 

The LIGO-India project will mean new openings for engineers from fields such as optical, mechanical and vacuum engineering and scientists specialising in areas including high-precision experiments, and optics, “at this point,” adds Iyer. “At the moment, we don’t have expertise in areas like high-precision experiments in India. So, LIGO-India could build capabilities in this field.”  

The world outside of academic portals, too, may see useful spin-offs from the waves captured by US-based twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors at two locations in the US -- Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington -- on September 14, 2015. “For society at large, engineering challenges like LIGO spur on the development of new technology,” says Ed Daw, reader, department of physics and astronomy, University of Sheffield. “We are developing control systems with new and interesting properties that have many applications, from control of electric motors to new protocols for mobile phone communications. These control systems were developed to remove noise from LIGO data,” he says. “All this should be particularly exciting to students thinking about going into physics or engineering, or particularly those having interests at the boundary between these two subjects.” 

Ripple Effect
-Two black holes collided into -- and merged with -- each other about 1.3 billion years away from earth
-The resulting energy sent ripples, termed gravitational waves, into the universe
-On September 14, 2015, at 5.51am Eastern Daylight Time, the waves passed through the blue planet where scientists had installed a twin observatory to ‘catch’ them 
-Einstein had predicted them 100 years ago  
-These are called gravitational waves as they are associated with a gravitational field in general relativity
-Founded in 1997, LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), which discovered the waves, has more than 1,000 scientists from 15 countries, including India.