Abstract

Australia has been active for many years in gravitational wave detection culminating in the commissioning and operation of the cryogenic niobium bar in Perth in 1994. This is now being used in coincidence detection with northern hemisphere bars. Over recent years interferometric detection methods have risen to prominence offering presently higher sensitivities than bars and over bandwidths from Hertz to kilo Hertz. While interferometers (LIGO, VIRGO and GEO) of observational sensitivity are presently under construction in the US and Europe, the success of gravitational astronomy in the 21st century will depend critically on striving to reduce all the noise sources so that these and subsequent detectors can operate as close to the standard quantum limit as possible. Even then it is possible that the shot noise component of that limit may be surmounted to a significant degree by utilising squeezed photon states. Also a gravitational wave observatory cannot ‘pinpoint’ a source unless some three to four detectors with the widest possible separation are combined in coincidence detection. Australia’s unique global position therefore makes it an obvious choice for the site of a fully observational detector forming part of the global network.

© 1996 Optical Society of America