All current and planned gravitational wave observatories are located in the northern hemisphere, in the US, India, Europe, and Japan. Even the next-generation observatories like Cosmic Explorer 40-km and the Einstein Telescope will be in the north. But a telescope in the southern hemisphere would provide a much larger baseline, allowing the detection of fainter gravitational waves. A new paper makes the case for building an observatory south of the equator.
As a basic case, the authors consider adding a LIGO-like observatory in Australia. Currently, there are two LIGO detectors in the United States and the Virgo detector in Italy. Together they detect around 3 events a year, though that number is rising as techniques improve. The addition of an Australian detector would double that count to more than 6 events.
In this case, adding an Australian detector would not significantly increase the number of observed events, raising the number from an estimated 40 a year to 44 a year. But as you can imagine, these new observatories will be so cutting edge that downtimes will be inevitable. In this case, an Australian observatory would give us a significant edge. With only Einstein and Cosmic Explorer, if one goes down for maintenance, the detection rate drops to a few a year.
As we get better at gravitational wave astronomy, there will eventually be detectors all over the world, and even in space. Gravitational wave astronomy will come to the global south. But as this study shows, the time for that is sooner, not later.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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