Virgo interferometer

Virgo is a French-Italian gravitational wave detector, whose centerpiece is a Michelson interferometer with three -kilometer-long arms. In this interferometer laser light is bouncing back and forth several times, so that a laser interferometer is formed with an effective arm length of 120 kilometers. The Virgo experiment is located on the premises of the European Gravitational Observatory ( EGO) in Cascina, Italy.

The goal of the detector is the direct detection of gravitational waves: tiny ripples in space-time, move according to Einstein 's general theory of relativity the speed of light through space, and which will serve as part of a gravitational wave astronomy to obtain information about celestial objects and events in the distant universe. Virgo is tuned to gravitational waves with frequencies from 10Hz to 10,000 hertz. When the desired sensitivity of the detector itself as gravitational waves from supernova explosions and from merging compact binaries in the Milky Way and distant galaxies should be detected - right up to the galaxies of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, according to which the detector is named.