LIGO Tour

During Scott's visit to LSU, Joe Giaime showed Luis Lehner, Inaki and me around the Livingston LIGO site. It was more deserted than I had expected but was still really cool. It is rare to be able to look down a truly straight (compensates for the curvature of the Earth) 4km long concrete tunnel that encases a laser interferometer that can detect length changes one-hundred-millionth (10^-8) the size of a Hydrogen atom (10^-18 m). Shown are murals that local children have painted on the side of one of the arms, the LIGO lounge area, the control room (shown is a picture of the beam and various monitors), and the new science outreach center. When we had arrived, LIGO was out of lock due to a 5pt earthquake in Indonesia. It's very sensitive.