Australian Partnership in Advanced LIGO

The detection of gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) proved general relativity in the strong field limit and the existence of black hole binary systems. The upgraded aLIGO facility will increase aLIGO sensitivity by a factor of 5. The resulting 125 fold increase in event rate will enable daily detections and new classes of eventsopening the field of gravitational wave astronomy. Given that only 5% of the stuff in the universe is detectable by telescopes, the impact of this on our understanding of the universe is inestimable. Australian partnership will enable our physicists and and astronomers to be at the vanguard of this brand new field and inspire a new generation to study the physical sciences.