Aussie scientists play important role in discovery of Einstein's gravitational waves

Western Australian scientists in a remote community have played a small but significant role in the detection of Albert Einstein's gravitational waves, revealed in Washington on Friday and considered one of the great breakthroughs in modern science.

Scientists working in Gingin, about 90 km north of Perth, identified instabilities in the detectors used by scientists in the United States 10 years ago and set about fixing the problems.

The director of the International Gravitational Research Center near Gingin, Professor David Blair from the University of Western Australia, said his team found that the detectors would "whistle" if not redesigned.

The whistle posed a significant hurdle for researchers as it threatened to contaminate the audio frequencies the detectors were searching for.

"We set about trying to mimic the American detectors here at Gingin," Blair told the ABC on Friday.

"We had to build a small scale version of the detector to be able to mimic the light conditions and everything else and we were able to create this whistling sound that happens and then we were able to stop it," he said.

"So our specific role has been stabilizing the American detectors."

The contribution by the team in Gingin did not end there, with the team also developing technology which allowed super computers to detect quickly the signals given off by the waves.

Blair's son, Carl, happened to be at one of the U.S. observatories when the first signal from a gravitational wave was detected, an experience he describes as exhilarating.

"Arriving at work the following morning everything was abuzz. Emails (were) flying around the place with what looked like a gravitational signal," he said.

Gravitational waves, first theorized by Einstein in 1915, are ripples in space-time caused by movements of objects with a large gravitational pull.

Einstein predicted that gravitational waves would be produced as a result of collisions between black holes or neutron stars.

The finding, announced in Washington on Friday, has been hailed as a major breakthrough all over the world with scientists predicting it will change the way we observe the universe.

The discovery was made by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), which comprises two giant detectors that are 4 km long and 4,000 km apart, housing the most sensitive equipment ever made.

In order to aid the hunt for gravitational waves, LIGO recently received 200 million U.S. dollars worth of upgrades. One of the major components of this was the installation of ultra-high-performance optical mirrors, many of which were coated by researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia.

According to Cathy Foley, Science Director of CSIRO Manufacturing, the upgrade of the LIGO detectors increased the sensitivity of the system by around tenfold.

"Through the use of interferometry, which is the merging of two sources of light, LIGO is designed to measure changes between the two arms of each detector. The two giant detectors, which are located on opposite sides of the U.S., are then compared to confirm the findings," Foley said.

According to Simon Johnston, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO, this discovery is an immensely important development for physics and astronomy.

"Gravitational waves exert a powerful appeal. Back in 1915 Einstein proposed that space-time is a four-dimensional fabric that can be pushed or pulled as objects move through it," Johnston said on Friday.

"If you run your hand through a still pool of water waves will follow in its path, spreading throughout the pool.

"Now that we've caught these waves we can use them to see the universe in an entirely different way to what was previously possible." Endit