Abstract:

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) consists of 4 km baseline detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and an additional 2 km detector in Hanford. LIGO's operating principle is to use precision laser interferometry to measure the relative motion of seismically-isolated test mass mirrors that is due to the extremely small forces from gravitational waves emitted by distant astrophysical events. This talk will include a description of LIGO detector and some recent improvements to it, as well as some scientific results and plans for the future.