Quick Questions on Virgo: “What is the Virgo Collaboration?”

This post is part of a series about quick questions and answers about the Virgo experiment and the science of gravitational waves. Do you have a quick question? Tell us and we will reply!

What is the Virgo Collaboration?

The Virgo Collaboration is an international team of researchers, engineers, and technicians working together on the construction, testing, and operation of the Virgo interferometer and its upgrade, with the goal of enabling gravitational waves physics and astronomy. Today, more than 250 people are members of the Virgo Collaboration, working at many different Institutes spread across five European countries, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. The Virgo experiment is mainly funded by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). The Dutch Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica (Nikhef) joined Virgo in 2006, contributing to funding the upgrade to Advanced Virgo. More recently, in 2008 and 2010, the POLGRAW group in Warsaw and the Wigner RCP (at the time of joining MTA KFKI RMKI) in Budapest joined the Virgo Collaboration.

virgocollaboration_centralbuildingThe Virgo Collaboration in front of the Central Building (Credits: M. Perciballi/The Virgo Collaboration)

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