GRAVITATIONAL WAVES NAPOLI RESEARCH GROUP
The
Laboratory is active in the gravitational wave research since many
years. Members of the lab are among the initial proponents of the Virgo
project and also a long collaboration has been established with the Lisa
project for the detection of the gravitational wave with space
interferometers.
Within the
Virgo project, during the years the laboratory activities have been
focused on the Optical Characterization of the interferometer, noise
reduction, definition of the working point both in longitudinal and
angular degrees of freedom, data acquisition environmental monitoring,
local controls implementations, data analysis with
particular focus on coalescing binary
systems.
Members of
the group have been appointed in various responsibility rules, like Data
Analysis coordinator, Electronic Responsible (for the Virgo Advanced
Detector), Commissioning coordinator, Interferometric Sensor and
Control coordinator (for the Virgo Advanced Detector) and others.
Presently the
detector is under the up-grade that will lead the detector in its
advanced version, so called Adv-Virgo. The group of Naples is
responsible for the Simulation and Definition of the longitudinal
control system, for the implementation of the local controls, the
environmental noise measurements and data acquisition. The works have
been published in more than 200 Virgo-Ligo group publications.
Within the
space antennas, called Lisa and eLisa, the activities have been mainly
focused on the realization of an alternative optical read-out system for
the control of the test mass motion with respect to the surrounding
satellite. The system, named ORO (optical read-out) has been proven to
be extremely sensitive and it is now under consideration for the
installation on the future satellite. The group is active in the
realization of a new generation torsion pendulum facility, named PETER,
for the measurement of small residual noise forces that could spoil the
sensitivity if not cured.
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