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.