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Introduction

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Written by: Administrator
Created: 10 October 2008
Last Updated: 09 September 2020
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The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed underground infrastructure to host a third-generation, gravitational-wave observatory. It builds on the success of current, second-generation laser-interferometric detectors Advanced Virgo and Advanced LIGO, whose breakthrough discoveries of merging black holes (BHs) and neutron stars over the past 5 years have ushered scientists into the new era of gravitational-wave astronomy.  The Einstein Telescope will achieve a greatly improved sensitivity by increasing the size of the interferometer from the 3km arm length of the Virgo detector to 10km, and by implementing a series of new technologies. These include a cryogenic system to cool some of the main optics to 10 – 20K, new quantum technologies to reduce the fluctuations of the light, and a set of infrastructural and active noise-mitigation measures to reduce environmental perturbations.

ET pictorial

The Einstein Telescope will make it possible, for the first time, to explore the Universe through gravitational waves along its cosmic history up to the cosmological dark ages, shedding light on open questions of fundamental physics and cosmology. It will probe the physics near black-hole horizons (from tests of general relativity to quantum gravity), help understanding the nature of dark matter (such as primordial BHs, axion clouds, dark matter accreting on compact objects), and the nature of dark energy and possible modifications of general relativity at cosmological scales. Exploiting the ET sensitivity and frequency band, the entire population of stellar and intermediate mass black holes will be accessible over the entire history of the Universe, enabling to understand their origin (stellar versus primordial), evolution, and demography. ET will observe the neutron-star inspiral phase and the onset of tidal effects with high signal-to-noise ratio providing an unprecedented insight into the interior structure of neutron stars and probing fundamental properties of matter in a completely unexplored regime (QCD at ultra-high densities and possible exotic states of matter). The excellent sensitivity extending to kilohertz frequencies will also allow us to probe details of the merger and post-merger phase. ET will operate together with a new innovative generation of electromagnetic observatories covering the band from radio to gamma rays (such as the Square Kilometer Array, the Vera Rubin Observatory, E-ELT, Athena, CTA).

ET-Universe

With a successful ESFRI proposal, the project will enter its preparatory phase, which foresees the beginning of construction in 2026 with the goal to start observations in 2035. Two candidate sites are under investigation: one in Sardinia and one in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Site-characterization studies are under way towards a site selection, which is expected for 2024. The evaluation of the sites must consider the feasibility of the construction and predict the impact of the local environment on the detector sensitivity and operation. The gravitational-wave community in the US is currently working on its own third-generation detector concept Cosmic Explorer (CE) towards a future global detector network with the Einstein Telescope.

News

The second Site Preparation Board (SPB) workshop will take place from23-26 January 2023, Maastricht (NL). This will be the occasion to discuss and get updates on the various activities taking place at the sites aspiring to possibly host the future Einstein Telescope (Sardegna in Italy, EMR partially in Belgium, Germany & The Netherlands and possibly Lausitz in Germany). In particular (hydro)geology aspects, noise environment, legal/permitting affairs, bidbook organization, schedules, excavation costs, local funding and future plans, etc. will be discussed. Apart from plenary presentations, lots of time will be reserved for discussions. 

The venue of the workshop is Thiessen Wineries, Maastricht, Grote Gracht 18, 6211SW, Maastricht, The Netherlands. See: https://thiessen.nl/. A maximum of 50 participants can be hosted in person. A video (Zoom) link will be provided to allow remote attendance.

Indico page here: https://indico.ego-gw.it/event/525/ 

The ET Monthly meetings are regular meetings, in general the first Tuesday of each month, where the status of the activities is described and where to discuss the hottest topics in ET. Because of the proximity of the ET annual meeting, the 8th of November 2022 Monthly meeting is cancelled.

The XII symposium of the Einstein Telescope (ET) took place in Budapest, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, on the 7th - 8th of June. The ET scientific community met in Budapest for a crucial step in the long Einstein Telescope journey: the formal establishment of the ET Collaboration.

More than 400 scientists, out of more than 1200 members of the Collaboration, parti cipated in the meeting in person or remotely. The ET members discussed the status of the experiment, the technical challenges, the scientific case, and the scientific and technical progresses made by each of the ET boards. The ET Project Directorate presented the perspective from the funding agencies. Finally, the approved INFRA-DEV Horizon EU project, for supporting the preparation phase of the experiment, and the INFRA-TECH Horizon EU proposal, recently submitted to Brussels for supporting technological R&D activities, were  introduced to the whole Collaboration.  

During the meeting in Budapest,  the ET Collaboration Board (CB) was constituted, temporary chaired by Dr. H. Lueck (AEI), composed of the representatives from each of the 79 research units from 13   countries. During the first CB meeting, the ET Collaboration discussed  the recently created ET bylaws that will govern the future of the experiment and initiated procedures to set up the  required Collaboration committees.     In addition, interim ET Spokesperson (Michele Punturo, INFN) and Deputy Spokesperson (Harald Lueck) figures were identified.  


With the birth of the ET Collaboration, this  symposium marks a milestone on the long journey of the Einstein Telescope endeavour.

Links:
https://indico.ego-gw.it/event/411 

Dear colleagues


The long journey of the Einstein Telescope (ET) has reached a crucial point: we are ready to launch the foundation of the ET Collaboration.
The ET Steering Committee has established an initial set of definitions and rules (ET Bylaws) that provide the framework for the ET Collaboration in its initial phase.

You can find the “ET bylaws” document at the link:

https://apps.et-gw.eu/tds/ql/?c=16220

The building blocks of the ET collaboration are the Research Units (RU) and the ET Steering Committee is now launching the call for proposals of new RUs in ET. The procedure to submit a proposal for a new RU in ET starts at this link, where an online form and an offline Excel file have to be filled in for each new RU proposal.

The collection of RU proposals will be permanently open, but only the proposal received within the 31st of May 2022 will be “used” to form the first Collaboration Board, which will meet during the next ET Symposium.

 

The XII ET Symposium will be in Budapest (Hungary) the 7-8 of June, 2022. The symposium is organised in a hybrid configuration, both in person and via Zoom.

As the number of participants is limited, we invite you to register as soon as possible on the Indico page: https://indico.ego-gw.it/event/411/

 

The Symposium will be a crucial step in the formation of the ET collaboration, following the procedure described above, and your participation is warmly recommended.


During the ET Symposium, the current status of the Collaboration, the exciting progress of the ET project and the scientific and technical progress in ET design will be presented; the focus will in any case be on the kick-off of the Collaboration.
We very much hope to see you in Budapest at the XII. ET Symposium.

 

              Michele & Harald on behalf of the ET steering committee

Participation to the M2-Tech proposal for the HORIZON-INFRA-2022-TECH-01-01 call

ET, CTAO and other ESFRI infrastructures are preparing a proposal for the HORIZON-INFRA-2022-TECH-01-01 European call. In case you are interested to participate, please, register on the form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfEBXLhqfKKn02X08WrexpeX4DU4LZFcoIeDmDJ-T_NGcO93A/viewform?usp=sf_link