Nobel Prize winning LIGO, gravitational wave detector, to be made in India by 2025

New Delhi : India is likely to get its first Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to measure ripples in the fabric of space by 2025. It will be made in collaboration with universities from across the globe.

The new LIGO detector will add to the two already operational in the US.

Last year, LIGO detector had won Nobel Prize in Physics for successfully discovering the first gravitational waves produced by two giant merging blackholes.

“When the detector building is completed in 2025, IUCAA will run it,” said Somak Raychaudhury, Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune.

The LIGO India project has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). 

The Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore and Institute for Plasma Research in Ahmedabad will be incharge for making different parts of the system, said Raychaudhury.

A third LIGO detector will help pinpoint the origin of the gravitational waves that are detected in future.

An agreement was officially signed at the British Council offices in New Delhi between a consortium of universities in India, led by the IUCAA and a consortium of UK universities, led by the University of Glasgow. This collaborative programme will enable Indian scientists to work with UK institutes for extended periods of time, with reciprocal visits to the India labs to develop infrastructure and provide onsite training, essential to build the capability to deliver a LIGO-India detector.

The existence of these waves were first predicted by German scientist Albert Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory of relativity.