Press Releases

Den Daten-Dschungel durchforsten:
Expertentreffen am Albert-Einstein-Institut Hannover

2. Mai 2012
Wie gehen wir mit den Informationen um, die uns Teleskope über das All liefern? Wie werden die stetig wachsenden Datenmengen gespeichert, analysiert und interpretiert? Am 3. und 4. Mai treffen sich mehr als 50 Wissenschaftler aus aller Welt in Hannover zum „3rd ASPERA Computing and Astroparticle Physics Workshop“, um diese Themen zu diskutieren.

Squeezed light and stopwatches for gravitational waves:
AEI scientists receive awards for their doctoral theses

16th April 2012
A member of the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) Hannover is to be the first recipient of a prize awarded for the best doctoral thesis in the field of gravitational physics. Alexander Khalaidovski will be presented with the newly established Stefano Braccini Prize for his PhD work on improving the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors. The doctoral research of another AEI scientist, Rutger van Haasteren, will also receive an honourable mention when the prize is presented tomorrow at a ceremony during a meeting of gravitational wave scientists in Cascina, Italy.

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Weiterer Hochleistungslaser für die Wellenjäger

	Das Hochleistungs-Lasersystem für LIGO.
	© LZH/AEI

4. April 2012
Das dritte und vorerst letzte Lasersystem für die amerikanischen Gravitationswellendetektoren LIGO hat seine Reise von Hannover nach Hanford (Washington) angetreten.

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Nine new gamma pulsars:
Discoveries in Fermi telescope data thanks to method used in gravitational wave astronomy

	The nine gamma-ray pulsars discovered at AEI Hannnover
	© AEI & NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

3th November 2011
Pulsars are the lighthouses of the universe. These compact and fast-rotating neutron stars flash many times per second in the radio or gamma-ray band. Pure gamma-ray pulsars are extremely difficult to find despite their high energy because they radiate very few photons per unit of time. Using an improved analysis algorithm, scientists from the Max Planck Society and international partners now discovered a set of previously unknown gamma-ray pulsars with low luminosity in data from the Fermi satellite. These pulsars had been missed using conventional methods. The number of known gamma-ray pulsars has thus grown to over 100. (The paper will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.)

Squeezed laser will bring gravitational waves to the light of day

	The new squeezing laser at GEO600. This highly complex laser system generates light which radiates much more calmly than light from a conventional laser source.
	© AEI

A quantum phenomenon allows detectors which sense oscillations of space-time to measure with 50 percent more accuracy

Measuring at the limits of the laws of nature – this is the challenge which researchers repeatedly take up in their search for gravitational waves. The interferometers they use here measure with such sensitivity that a particular quantum phenomenon of light – shot noise – limits the measuring accuracy. With the “squeezed light” method scientists from the Max Planck Society and the Leibniz Universität Hannover likewise use quantum physics in a countermove in order to remove the interfering effect. The new type of laser light improves the measuring accuracy of the gravitational wave detector GEO600 by around 50 percent and thus increases its effective sensitivity. This is the first time this technology has been used outside of a test laboratory anywhere in the world. The results will be published in the specialist journal Nature Physics, online on 11th September 2011. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NPHYS2083)

Optimized curve of measurement (rot): Squeezed laser light improves the sensitivity of GEO600 at frequencies from some hundreds Hertz and higher by about 50 percent. black curve: measurements without the squeezing laser. (© AEI/Grote/Schnabel)

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European scientists take a major step forward towards detecting gravitational waves

5th August 2011
European scientists take a major step forward towards detecting gravitational waves

Scientists operating Europe’s gravitational wave observatories have combined efforts this summer to search for gravitational waves. This groundbreaking research is being taken forward in Europe while similar US-based detectors undergo major upgrade work. Cataclysmic cosmic events such as supernovae, colliding neutron stars and black holes, as well as more familiar objects such as rotating neutron stars (pulsars) are expected to emit gravitational waves – oscillations in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. The detection of such waves would revolutionise our understanding of the Universe.

Besser hören mit verteilten Ohren

	© Albert-Einstein-Institut Hannover

27. Mai 2011
Ein Observatorium in Japan, Australien oder Indien würde die Wahrscheinlichkeit, Gravitationswellen zu messen, dramatisch erhöhen

Detektoren in den USA, Deutschland und Italien liegen auf der Lauer, um einem von Albert Einsteins letzten Geheimnissen auf die Spur zu kommen: Gravitationswellen. Bisher gelang es nicht, diese Krümmungen der Raumzeit direkt nachzuweisen. Würden die vorhandenen Detektoren jedoch anders über die Erde verteilt, stiegen die Chancen um mehr als das Doppelte. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt Bernard F. Schutz, Direktor am Golmer Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut), in einer neuen Studie. Und eine weitere Verbesserung ließe sich mit dem Bau zusätzlicher Gravitationswellen-Observatorien erzielen.

Plans shape up for a revolutionary new observatory to explore black holes and the Big Bang

19th May 2011
Scientists present their design for Einstein Telescope – Europe’s next-generation detector that will ‘see’ the Universe in gravitational waves

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	Background Information (english)

After NASA’s withdrawal from partnership with Europe: Science team begins to rethink LISA design

14th April 2011
It was just in February this year that ESA kicked off the process of picking the next major mission in its Cosmic Vision program, with presentations at a meeting of Europe's astronomers and planetary scientists in Paris. Among the favorites was the first gravitational wave observatory in space, called LISA, which had already been given a high scientific priority in the USA by NASA's 2007 Beyond Einstein review and by American astronomers' 2010 Decadal Review of Astronomy. But now NASA has admitted that cost overruns on its James Webb Space Telescope mission will remove so much money from its program that it cannot commit to being an equal partner with ESA on any major science mission in the near future.

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Einstein@Home detects unusual stellar pair

	Orbiting around a common centre of gravity: This simulation shows the orbits of pulsar J1952+2630 and its companion, presumably a white dwarf. The orbits are virtually circular, they only appear to be elliptical due to the viewing angle.
	© AEI

6th April 2011
The neutron star and its companion could prove helpful in testing the general theory of relativity

Neutron stars are quite unique: the material they are made of is packed much more densely than conventional matter. They rotate extremely fast about their own axis, emitting radiation in the process, so they are often visible as pulsars in the radio spectrum. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hanover, working as part of the international PALFA Collaboration, and with the help of participants in the Einstein@Home project, have now discovered a pulsar accompanied by a white dwarf – a burnt-out star. The researchers want to weigh the pair, using what is known as the Shapiro effect. (Astrophysical Journal Letters, 732/1 L1)

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	Astrophysical Journal Letters, 732/1 L1

Second discovery with Einstein@Home: J1952+2630 - a neutron star with a binary companion

An der Schwelle zu einer neuen Astronomie – Generationswechsel bei den Gravitationswellendetektoren: Fazit und Ausblick

	Neuer Spiegel für GEO600 zum Signalrecycling
	© AEI/Harald Lück

GEO600 horcht bis 2015 allein ins All

04. Februar 2011
Die Wissenschaftler des Albert-Einstein-Instituts Hannover (Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik und Leibniz Universität Hannover) sowie ihre britischen Kollegen beenden derzeit die erste Phase ihres großangelegten Experimentes GEO600. Seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten entwickeln und erproben die Physiker dort Technologien für Gravitationswellendetektoren. Jetzt ist das Ende der ersten Etappe auf der Jagd nach den Gravitationswellen erreicht: die Messinstrumente funktionieren in allen Observatorien des internationalen Netzwerks wie erwartet. Sowohl das deutsch-britische GEO600-Observatorium als auch die beiden LIGO-Detektoren in den USA und das Virgo-Experiment in Italien arbeiten äußerst zuverlässig und hochpräzise. Damit sind die Voraussetzungen für die nächste Generation von Gravitationswellenobservatorien geschaffen.

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Prof. Karsten Danzmann in die Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg berufen