Life@Virgo_Gallery

Payload sr con nuovo RING HEATHER

ring heater per TORRE S.R.
LAVATO MONTATO.........

Paola Puppoo e Federica Mezzani mentre montano il SR nel 2017

Paola Puppo nel montaggio del Beam Splitter

The output mode-cleaner cavity is a small monolithic optical cavity used to "clean" the laser beam going out of the interferometer: only the Gaussian mode of the beam, which contains the imprint of the gravitational waves, is transmitted by this cavity. This picture shows such a 6-cm long cavity being characterized at LAPP in June 2014.
Credits: The Virgo Collaboration/LAPP

The 3-km long building of Virgo hosts a vacuum tube of 1.3 m of diameter. The laser beam propagates back and forth inside this tube.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Series of electronic racks with Virgo devices used to control suspensions of minitowers, to acquire the signals from photodiodes and cameras of suspended optical benches, to supply the power to these sensors, to acquire some environmental probe siignals, etc... The digital data acquired in the whole Virgo experiment are routed inside the data network using multiplexers/demultiplerxers located in this room.

Credits: The Virgo collaboration/LAPP

Three racks hosting the electronics to control the superattenuator where a bench used to acquire the interference pattern is suspended and the electronics to control the optical elements installed on this bench.
On the background, vacuum enclosure of superattenuators are visible.

Credits: The Virgo collaboration/LAPP

Optical fibers are used to acquire and transmit the digital data from sub-systems to sub-systems over the whole Virgo interferometer. Patch panels are used to ease the optical fiber installation.
Electronics racks are visible in reflection on the door.

Credits: The Virgo collaboration/LAPP

A researcher is tuning the position of a mirror on an optical bench suspended to a superattenuator. The whole vacuum enclosure, when opened for intervention, is a clean room. The white cables are going up all along the superattenuator. They are used to control from remote the orientation of the mirrors, to acquire signals and control the length of a major element, the "output mode cleaner cavity".

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The researcher is tuning the position of a mirror on an optical bench. For Advanced Virgo, new optical benches have been suspended and put in vacuum. The mechanics of the suspension is visible on the top part still opened. On-board electronics is attached below the suspended bench to reduce the number of (white) electrical cables going along the suspension.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The laser beam of the Virgo interferometer is generated onto these two optical benches and sent inside the interferometer towards the beam-splitter mirror.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The researcher is checking the laser beam alignment on a mirror of an optical bench. The infrared beam is not visible by human eyes, a dedicated visualisation card allows to see the beam position.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The researcher is using a tool to visualize the laser beam in the clean room where the laser beam is generated. The Virgo laser light being infrared, it is not visible with naked eyes.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The Virgo infrared laser beam propagates back and forth inside the 3-km long vacuum tube.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The Virgo infrared laser beam propagates back and forth inside the 3-km long vacuum tube.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The Virgo infrared laser beam propagates back and forth inside the 3-km long vacuum tube.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The researchers are preparing the optical bench to be inserted inside the vacuum enclosure and suspended to the mechanical attenuator on top of the enclosure, called minitower. A clean area has been built around the minitower to keep the optical elements out of dust.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

In order to improve the vacuum in hhe 3-km tubes of Advanced Virgo, cryotraps have been installed at both ends of the tubes. Here the cryotrap at the north end prevents the residual water molecules to go from the tower to the tube. In the tower, a mirror is suspended to a superattenuator.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Optical elements (lenses and mirrors) installed on an optical bench suspended and put in vacuum. The larger elements are used to reduce the size of the laser beam going out of the interferometer from a few centimeters down to less than a millimeter. The other optical elements are used to bring and focalize the beam onto sensors as photodiodes and cameras.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Superattenuators are used to suspend the main interferometer mirrors and benches to isolate them from the seismic ground vibrations. Here, a mechanical attenuator, part of a superattenuator, is being installed. The attenuator is then enclose in a vacuum tower.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Superattenuators are used to suspend the main interferometer mirrors and benches to isolate them from the seismic ground vibrations. Here, a superattenuator, surrounded by a scaffolding, is being installed. The attenuator is then enclose in a vacuum tower.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The Advanced Virgo central building hosts the laser, five suspended mirrors and five suspended benches in vacuum.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

The coating of the Virgo mirrors, designed to have the required reflectivity and high quality mechanical properties, is designed, made and characterized in a French lab from CNRS, Laboratoire des Matériaux Avancés, located close to Lyon.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/LMA/Photothèque CNRS ?

The two 3-km arms of the interferometer meet the central building where the laser is generated, and five mirrors, including the beam-splitter mirror, are hosted. Optical benches used to acquire the interference pattern are also hosted in this building. On the left part, the other buildings host EGO offices.

Credits: the Virgo Collaboration/N. Baldocchi

Since 2007, the data from the LIGO, GEO and Virgo detectors are shared and analyzed together as from a single "telescope". Sharing the data is of main importance to reject local perturbations in the data and to localise the gravitational wave in the sky, i.e. to make astronomy.

Credits: Virgo Collaboration/LAPP and Tom Patterson (www.shadedrelief.com)

Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL

GW150914, the first ever detected gravitaional wave, came from two black holes that merged over a billion light years from Earth. This picture is extracted from a computer simulation showing what this would look like up close.
The black holes are near us, in front of a sky filled with stars and gas and dust. The black regions are the shadows of the two black holes: no light would reach us from these areas. Light from each star or bit of gas or dust travels to our eyes along paths (light rays) that are greatly bent by the holes' gravity and by their warped spacetime.

Credit: SXS Lensing (License: CC-BY-SA 4.0)

This optical bench houses photodiodes and cameras used to control the interferometer and to detect passing gravitational waves. Lenses and mirrors are used to guide the laser beam to the sensors. The Advanced Virgo benches are suspended to an attenuator and placed in vacuum in order to isolate them from vibrations from the ground and from environmental sounds. In this picture, a researcher is closing the "hat" of the vacuum enclosure. where the attenuation system can be seen.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Five interferometer mirrors and two benches are suspended to superattenuators in the central building.
The superattenuators are a complex mechanical system used to isolate the mirrors and benches from the seismic noise. Moreover, they are enclosed in vacuum in order to isolate them from acoustic noise. Five superattenuators are visible in this picture, four with the vacuum enclosure closed ("towers"). The shorter one in the front of the picture is used to suspend an optical bench. Mirrors are suspended to the longer ones (~10-m high).

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Five interferometer mirrors and two benches are suspended to superattenuators in the central building.
The superattenuators are a complex mechanical system used to isolate the mirrors and benches from the seismic noise. Moreover, they are enclosed in vacuum in order to isolate them from acoustic noise. Five superattenuators are visible in this picture, four with the vacuum enclosure closed ("towers") and the new one added for Advanced Virgo being mounted.

Credits: Cyril Frésillon/Virgo/Photothèque CNRS

Electronic devices installed inside a tight "air-box" below an Advanced Virgo bench to be suspended and placed in vacuum.

Credits: Virgo collaboration/LAPP

The two Advanced Virgo end mirrors after they have been coated at LMA.

Credits: Virgo collaboration/LMA/L. Pinard

Picture of the Advanced Virgo beam-splitter mirror (diameter 550 millimeters) being prepared in the LMA clean room.

Credit: Virgo Collaboration/LMA/L. Pinard

42 kg fused silica mirror suspended by two thin wires of fused silica (glass).

Credits: Virgo collaboration

Zoom on an anchor bonded to one side of a mirror and attached monolithically to two thin fused silica wires used to suspend the 42 kg mirror.

Credits: Virgo collaboration

42 kg mirror (with a thin pink protecting film) suspended inside the payload by two thin wires of fused silica (glass).

Credits: Virgo collaboration

Credits: Virgo Collaboration/M. D'Andrea

View from the bottom of the payload (including mirror, reference mass, baffle, compensating plate and ring heater) suspended into a Virgo super-attenuator in July 2015.
Credits: Virgo Collaboration

The optical bench has been for the first time inserted into the vacuum tank in July 2015. In this picture, the electronics installed below the suspended bench is being connected.
Credits: Virgo Collaboration/LAPP/R. Bonnand

The optical bench has been for the first time inserted into the vacuum tank in July 2015.
Credits: Virgo Collaboration/LAPP/R. Bonnand

Picture with the main building and taken looking towards North. The beginning of the 3 km West arm is visible. The 144 m long tube for the input mode-cleaner cavity is also visible along the West direction, with the small building that hosts one of the mirror of the cavity.
Credits: Virgo Collaboration/N. Baldocchi