Shedding light on the Big Bang

Scientists at the ANU have developed a technology that may be used to study the universe's most violent events - the Big Bang and exploding stars. Their research shows that 'squeezed' light could be used to improve the performance of gravitational wave detectors.

Kirk McKenzie, an honours student in the Faculty of Science, said squeezed light was a particular form of light that would dramtically increase the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors. He said detection of gravitational waves would give scientists a new way of looking at the universe.

Einstein predicted that gravitational waves would produce ripples in the fabric of the universe. current detectors aim to measure these ripples using very accurate lasers, however because gravitational waves are very small, they have not yet been detected with current technology.

Mr McKenzie believes the close collaboration between two ANU groups, the Gravitational Wave Facility, which produces detectors, and the Quantum Optics group, which concentrates on squeezed light, made his work possible.

The technical challenge was to show that the two technologies were compatible, however, he was able to show that they actually improve each other.

Following his visit, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher said Mr McKenzie's work was world-leading research and would be used in state-of-the-art detectors that would be sensitive enough to allow scientists to pinpoint the source of gravitational waves.

Mr McKenzie will himself spend 3 months at MIT to see how squeezed light could be applied to the largest gravitational wave detection facility in the world, and said he hoped that this sort of collaboration would allow Australia to play a significant role in an international consortium to build a global array of detectors.

Item provided courtesy of ANU