1. EGO The Infrastructure for Gravitational Wave Research in Europe

2. The Past

3. The history of the Virgo project The VIRGO Collaboration
First studies:
Brillet (Nice): optics
Giazotto (Pisa): seismic isolation
Collaboration Italy - France established in 1992
CNRS and INFN approved the VIRGO project
1997: Construction starts near Pisa
Foundation of EGO in 2000
2004/2005 Commissioning
2006 Physics
Netherlands: Nikhef joined in 2006
EGO Council approved Advanced VIRGO in 2009
Poland (POLGRAW) & Hungary (WIGNER) joined in 2010

4. and to promote cooperation for gravitational waves physics
EGO was born (2000) as French-Italian Consortium to ensure the construction, operation and upgrade of Virgo
EGO
and to promote cooperation for gravitational waves physics
in Europe

5. EGO – European Gravitational Observatory
VIRGO
Firenze-Urbino
Genova
Napoli
Perugia
Pisa
Padova-Trento
Roma
Roma Tor Vergata
Istituto
Nazionale di
Fisica
Nucleare
Annecy
Lyon
Nice
Orsay
Paris (3)
Centre
National de la
Recherche
Scientifique
Since Amsterdam
Since Budapest
Warszawa
~ 200 Physicists, engineers & technicians
EGO – European Gravitational Observatory
~ 55 Physicists, engineers & technicians

6. EGO VIRGO A large infrastructure : 3 km long arms: ΔL / L = 10-21
60 ha of land; ~ m3 of buildings
The largest high vacuum system in Europe:
7000 m3 P ≅10-9 mbar
High tech optics
Several class 10 clean rooms
15000 m3 thermo stabilized to ± 0.1 °C
600 kW electrical power
24h/24h data taking; 1 TB/day collected
VIRGO

7. CERN – like Governance STAC Scientific & Technical Advisory Committee
COUNCIL
CERN – like
Governance
STAC
Scientific & Technical Advisory Committee
Direction
AdV PO
Administration
General Infrastructure
Information Technology
Interferometer Technology

8. Investiments from 2000 to establish the infrastructure + first generation experiment:
EGO personnel
62 FTE, of which 36 engineers and applied physicists
Fellowships on EGO budget: 75 in 10 yrs. (~5.5 M€)

9. The Present

10. GW Advanced detectors network
GEO, Hannover
2016
2015
~ 2017
~ 2022
AIGO, Perth

11. EGO incomes from CNRS & INFN + Nikhef:
AdV Investments: 23.8 M€
7 M€ from CNRS (FR)
7 M€ from INFN (IT)
2 M€ from Nikhef (NL)
7.8 M€ from EGO
+ in kind from Wigner (HU) and Polgrav (PL)
EGO incomes from CNRS & INFN + Nikhef:
Ordinary contributions M€ k€
Budget 2015: ~14 M€ (including residuals)
Personnel 30%
Internal running costs 25%
Investments (AdV + Fellowships) 45%

12. Credit: R.Powell, B.Berger
Advanced detectors
The upgrade to the advanced phase (2nd generation) is almost completed. The detector should be in commissioning in 2016
Advanced are promising roughly a factor 10 in sensitivity improvement
108 ly
Enhanced LIGO/Virgo+
Virgo/LIGO
Credit: R.Powell, B.Berger
Adv. Virgo/Adv. LIGO
This allows a detection distance for coalescing BNS of about Mpc

13. Networking Networking in GW research is crucial:
Know-how and Data exchange
Interactions with Astrophysics and Numerical Relativity communities
Common R&D
Commissioning
Planning
EGO strategy in EU towards a full integration of GW research in the World
Main tool: European Projects

14. Networking Interactions with Astrophysics community
Data Access & publications policy
MOU between EGO/Virgo & LIGO/GEO for the ADE
Full sharing of data
Common data format
Joint data repositories
Joint publications policy
Interactions with Astrophysics community
MOU with ~ 70 Astronomical partners finalized to identification of electromagnetic
counterparts to GW triggers
Signed in 2014
Signed in 2015

15. The Future

16. EU Strategy
EGO Second Pillar: promote cooperation for GW research in EU
Adopted tools: EU projects
3rd Generation interferometers initially defined in 2005
thanks to an ESF explorative workshop
FP6-ILIAS integration activities (under ASPERA)
Networking in GW - FR, DE, ES, GB, IT
Coordination of the proposal for the 3rd generation:
Einstein Telescope Design Study
DE, FR, IT, NL, UK, ES, HU, PL + RU
Coordination of ELiTES - exchange of researchers with KAGRA (JP) DE, IT, NL, FR, UK + JA
Coordination of GRaWIToN - ITN, 13 PhD, + 4 industrial partners (Optics, Lasers, Simulations) DE, FR, IT, UK
EGO within H2020-INFRAIA: Integrating gravitational wave research infrastructures (trans-national access, networking, JRA)

17. The aim of the ET project (Einstein Telescope) is the realization of the III generation GW observatory, in Europe
The ET design study built up a pan-European community (ET Science Team) supporting the project
ET conceptual design study document delivered in 2011
ET inserted in National and sectorial road-maps (GWIC, Aspera, OECD GSF/APIF, …)

18. The Research Infrastructure
The ET research infrastructure is a giant scale GW interferometer, cryogenic and underground

19. Policy & Governance Next step:
proposal to insert ET into a future ESFRI road-map
(After first detection!!!)
Parallel Action:
EGO as an ERIC, European Research Infrastructure Consortium
Draft MoU to be submitted to the Ministries of Research of FR, HU, IT, NL, PL, UK
Beneficial for the whole (EU) GW Community

20. Summary
An efficient, responsive and light structure to support Virgo and promote European collaboration under supervision by national institutions
EGO existence relies on Virgo/AdV success
The future of GW in Europe depends upon a stronger collaboration between EU countries. EGO may prefigure the required infrastructure.
Advanced VIRGO