South Korean Prime Minister visits Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics

Max Planck Society wants to expand scientific cooperation with South Korea

On Monday, April 20, 2009, Han Seung-soo, the Prime Minister of South Korea, will visit the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute, AEI) in Hannover together with the Max Planck President Prof. Dr. Peter Gruss, in order to discuss increasing scientific cooperation. “We already have very good relations with South Korea, for example through Max Planck junior research groups at South Korean universities,” Peter Gruss outlined. “In the future, we want to continue to expand scientific cooperation.”

The meeting will be attended by high-ranking representatives from the South Korean Government and the Pohang Institute of Science and Technology, the President and Vice-President of the Max Planck Society, as well as the Directors of the AEI.

The AEI, due to the innovative and reliable technologies it has developed, enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide and is regarded as a “think tank” for international gravitational wave research. The AEI, for example, has developed the most modern lasers in the world in close cooperation with the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. and the Leibniz Universität Hannover. These lasers are now at work in all gravitational wave observatories throughout the world. AEI scientists are taking a step further with the technique of the “squeezed vacuum.” This technology is designed for the third generation of gravitational wave detectors.

At the Institute, the Korean guests will have the opportunity, among others, to view a prototype for the next generation of gravitational wave detectors. The high-performance technology developed in Hannover will be thoroughly tested here before it is installed in the gravitational wave detectors of the worldwide network.