30 January 2025

Photo: MPI für Gravitationsphysik/NIKHEF

The future Einstein Telescope will consist of three interlaced detectors with arms a full ten kilometers long. This will make the research facility comparable to international large-scale research facilities such as the particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.

Together with cooperation partners, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe at University of Hamburg are developing and testing components for the future Einstein Telescope. The large-scale research facility is a third-generation gravitational wave detector and is to be built in Europe in the coming decades.

Researchers around the world have long been planning and developing a new generation of gravitational wave detectors, which will make it possible to gain more precise insights into the development of the universe since its beginnings. One of these detectors is the so-called Einstein Telescope. It is still unclear exactly when and where it will be built. Three locations are being discussed: in the border triangle between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, in Sardinia in Italy, or in Lusatia in Saxony, Germany.

In close collaboration with researchers from various departments at University of Hamburg, DESY and Helmut Schmidt University, experimental physicists from University of Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence “Quantum Universe” are working on a laboratory environment in which components for the Einstein Telescope will be developed and tested. “Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld offers us an ideal environment to create this laboratory environment,” says Prof. Dr. Oliver Gerberding, Professor of Gravitational Wave Detection at UHH. “We also benefit from a close exchange with theoretical physics and astrophysics, which are also preparing for the Einstein Telescope.”

Theoretically predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago, the first measurement of gravitational waves was only made in 2015. The Einstein Telescope is set to continue this groundbreaking research and revolutionize observations once again. Its function is based on laser interferometry, i.e. the superposition of laser beams that have traveled different distances. To obtain precise measurement results, it is important to know and reduce sources of interference. The Hamburg researchers are developing methods to suppress various sources of interference, such as quantum noise and seismic waves.

At the Cluster of Excellence “Quantum Universe”, scientists from the fields of particle, astro- and mathematical physics at University of Hamburg and DESY are researching the origin and development of the universe. The majority of cosmological observations to date are based on electromagnetic radiation, light, and only allow conclusions to be drawn about the development of the universe from around 380,000 years after its creation. The measurement of gravitational waves, on the other hand, also provides a glimpse into the very early developmental phase of the universe.