LIGO measures gravitational wave-induced changes in the relative lengths of widely separated interferometer arms. Laser light travels along perpendicular arms, reflects from suspended mirrors and recombines; a change in relative optical phase alters the detected signal. Arm optical cavities increase the interaction time, while vibration isolation and mirror suspension reduce unwanted motion.[ref]
Advanced LIGO by J. Aasi and others. Abstract and detector configuration: Michelson geometry, arm cavities and noise-control systems
The strain scale is roughly the differential length change divided by arm length. Calibration converts the optical readout into strain, and agreement between separated observatories helps distinguish an astrophysical signal from a local disturbance.
A scientific collaboration, not an individual person.
Articles by others on the same topic
- youtu.be/dX4vCNi544w?t=1866 this section about numerical simulation is quite interesting. They don't know how to solve the inverse problem, so they just simulated a bunch of different mass combinations
- youtu.be/dX4vCNi544w?t=2290 they use Ubuntu everywhere, default purple desktop. God bless. It's good enough for gravitational wave detection, just not good enough for some shitty enterprise application. Lol.
LIGO, which stands for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a large-scale physics experiment designed to detect and measure gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime caused by the acceleration of massive objects, such as merging black holes or neutron stars. LIGO consists of two main facilities located in the United States: one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana.