gwoptics: Tools for detecting gravitational waves
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Welcome to
gw
optics
.org! This page provide information and software
related to gravitational wave detection, with
a special focus on optics research and interferometer simulations.
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Ifosim logbooks
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News
30.06.2021 - Einstein Telescope enters the ESFRI Roadmap
Today the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)
has announced that the
Einstein Telescope
will be included in its
2021 roadmap for large European infrastructures
. This is an important acknowledgment of the ET project on an international and governmental level after many years of work to design the observatory, develop the science case and form the supporting scientific collaboration.
24.06.2021 - Special issue on software for gravitational waves
A new special issue on
Software that Contributed to Gravitational Wave Discovery
has now been published in SoftwareX. The issue combines several articles that describe a wide range of software tools which provided significant contributions towards the first detection of gravitational waves, for example, in support of the development of the instruments, the detector operation or the analysis of the detector data. The special issue includes our article
Pykat: Python package for modelling precision optical interferometers
with the most up-to-date description of
Finesse
and
Pykat
29.04.2021 - Finesse 3.0a1, first alpha release
In late 2017 we started the development of
Finesse
3, a re-implementation of
Finesse
in Python, with the idea to provide a modern and clean code base that makes further developing and extending the software simpler, especially for external contributors. After four years, with a
small team of core contributors
, we have come a long way:
the source code
and
documentation
are growing quickly, and we are excited to test-drive this new version. Today we reached our first major milestone, the first release of an alpha version:
Finesse
3.0a1
. (Note that this version is not yet meant for general use, for that we recommend
Finesse
instead.)
26.04.2021 - Einstein Telescope, new impressions
As part of the preparations for our
ESFRI application of the Einstein Telescope
we not only prepared a number of
new documents
, including an
updated design
but Marco Kraan (Nikhef) also produced new artists impressions of the ET infrastructure, as a
video and several still images
26.02.2021 - Interferometer simulation logbooks
Already last year we established a new website to host logbooks for interferometer simulations:
Logbooks are a common tool for recording progress in collaborative research projects, in
particular for large hardware projects such as gravitational wave detectors. Logbooks
record and preserve who did what when and thus over time create a searchable archive of
expert knowledge. We adopted the same format here with the aim of generating a long
term archive of interferometer models and simulations.
01.01.2021 - Site Redesign
gw
optics
.org! has now been online for over a decade! With the help of a previous student of mine,
Aaron Jones
, the site has been updated for another decade of use!
31.12.2020 - Papers, papers, papers
2020 was certainly an unusual year, so we are extra happy to have been able to submit to the following results to arXiv server. All of these results are peer reviewed, see links therein for the journal references:
Philip Jones et al.:
Implications of the Quantum Noise Target for the Einstein Telescope Infrastructure Design
Aaron W. Jones et al.:
High Dynamic Range Spatial Mode Decomposition
and
Increased Sensitivity of Higher-Order Laser Beams to Mode Mismatches
Daniel D. Brown et al.:
Pykat: Python package for modelling precision optical interferometers
Sam Rowlinson et al.:
Feasibility study of beam-expanding telescopes in the interferometer arms for the Einstein Telescope
09.09.2020 - Einstein Telescope submitted to ESFRI
Yesterday the
Einstein Telescope
was submitted to the
European Stratagy Forum on Research Infrastructures
. This submission marks the moment when we formalize the support and enthusiasm for this project and was supported by scientists in 41 research institutes from 10 countries!
Read more in the
Nikhef press release
04.03.2019 - Chirp notifications
Today we released a major update of your
Chirp
app. The mobile version (iOS, Android) now received push
notifications for new gravitational wave events. This
makes it even easier to stay up to date with LIGO and
Virgo. Download it now while LIGO and Virgo are still taking
data in their third data taking run!
01.11.2019 - Chirp, gravitational wave alerts
LIGO and Virgo have just started the second part of their
third data taking run (O3b). Just in time, we have
released '
Chirp
', a mobile app that provides easy access
to all the gravitational wave alerts (new and previous)
sent out by LIGO and Virgo.
27.08.2019 - Interferometer modeling and Finesse hackathon
This week we welcome 20 people from around the world to Birmingham
for a
hands-on
workshop on interferometer modeling
. The
workshop is supported by a Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship which
is jointly funded by the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation.
We will use
Finesse
and
Pykat
to advance our understanding of current gravitational wave
detectors and towards designing the next generation.
At the same time some of us will get together for a hackathon focussed on
Finesse 3
, the next
generation incarnation of our software.
01.06.2017 - A new black hole
Today LIGO has published an article on Physics Review Letters
announcing the detection of a new signal from colliding black holes:
GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
The newfound black hole, formed by the merger, has a mass about 49
times that of our sun. This fills in a gap between the masses of the
two merged black holes detected previously by LIGO, with solar
masses of 62 (first detection) and 21 (second detection).
This result is the first outcome of LIGO's second current observing
run, which began November 30, 2016, and will continue through this summer.
In parallel the LIGO collaboration is working on technical upgrades
for LIGO's next run, scheduled to begin in late 2018, during which
the detectors' sensitivity will be improved.
31.05.2017 - Papers, papers, papers
Writing research papers is usually a major milestone within longer research
projects. And the writing process itself often seems to be as difficult as the
actual research. Therefore it always a great moment when our papers
appear on the arxiv pre-print server. At this stage the peer
review is still ongoing, but the two really difficult parts of the
job are done. We are happy to have the following three instrument related papers
recently submitted to the arxiv server:
Daniel Brown et al.:
Broadband sensitivity enhancement of detuned dual-recycled Michelson interferometers with EPR entanglement
Anna Green et al.:
The Influence of Dual-Recycling on Parametric Instabilities at Advanced LIGO
Daniel Töyrä et al.:
Multi-spatial-mode effects in squeezed-light-enhanced interferometric gravitational wave detectors
15.03.2017 - All about interferometry
Our new review article
Interferometer Techniques for Gravitational-Wave Detection
is
available now. More than 200 pages about laser interferometry, with
a particular focus on its application for gravitational wave
detection. This open access article was originally published in
2010. This version represents a major update, including additional
topics, such as spatial laser beam modes and how to deal with them.
The article is free to access, available as a pdf file or as an
online webpage.
15.03.2017 - Issue 10 of the LIGO Magazine
Issue 10 of the
LIGO
Magazine
has been published today. If you happen to be
at the LIGO-Virgo meeting today you can grab a paper copy.
Everyone else, get the
pdf version online
This is the first issue of the Magazine
without me as editor in chief. Ever since founding the magazine
five years ago, I very much enjoyed the buzz when the team of
editors worked on a new issue. I also learned that making a
good magazine takes hard work and a lot of time,
especially near the end of a production cycle. After five years,
and with a detection issue to boot, I felt it was time to hand
the magazine over to someone with fresh eyes and new ideas.
Jocelyn Read has agreed to be the new editor in chief and this
issue is already her first result. Have a look!
01.03.2017 - Let's talk about Finesse
We have recently moved some of our optical modelling
tools to new LIGO servers. If you are interested in
optical modelling, or are a
Finesse
user,
and you have a login for LIGO-Virgo computer systems,
please join us at
(We have 23 people in the chat channel as I am writing this).
At the same time we have moved the source code for
Finesse
and
Pykat
to the
Gitlab servers at LIGO
We hope that with this move our activity will become more accessible
to other members in the collaboration.
09.10.2016 - Black Hole Master available for testing
After some internal testing by gravitational-wave groups,
Black Hole Master
is now
available for testing to everyone. At this stage the game
does not yet have a single-player mode. But the two-player
mode is quite stable and fun to play! If you have a friend
available, and two game controllers, head over to the
Black Hole Master page
at
Laser Labs
and start playing!
01.09.2016 - The LIGO Magazine is out!
The latest issue of the
LIGO Magazine
is available now. We of course report on the second detection of
gravitational waves, but the main focus is on our efforts in
outreach and public engagement, from a collage of tweets echoing the
excitement of the first detection, to the story of Birmingham
students about making a new exhibit for the Birmingham ThinkTank
Science Museum.
Download the magazine
for free now and see for yourself.
21.07.2016 - TEDx talk in Birmingham
My colleague Alberto Vecchio and myself were invited to speak
at TEDxBrum, an annual, individually organised TED event in
Birmingham, UK. The preparation of a TED-style talk
and also to participate in the event itself on June 11th 2016
proved to be new and fun experiences for us. You can now
watch the talk on Youtube
, I also collected
some
impressions from the event
07.05.2016 - Talk at PyData London
Today I am giving a keynote presentation at the PyData London
conference. I will talk about detecting gravitational
waves with LIGO, and give a brief overview of our use of Python for
interferometer simulations. The presentation
has been
recorded
and the slides are available
for
as a pdf file.
22.04.2016 - New versions of
Finesse
and PyKat
Today we have released
Finesse
2.1
and
PyKat 1.0
Finesse
2.1 is a bug-fix
release improving the new features introduced in version 2.0.
See the
CHANGES
file for a
complete list of fixes and changes.
PyKat is a Python interface for
our interferometer simulation
Finesse
that allows us to
run and share our models and results using IPython notebooks.
We have been exclusively using PyKat for several months now and
recommend this as the best way to use
Finesse
07.03.2016 - The new LIGO Magazine is here!
The latest issue of the
LIGO Magazine
has been published today. This issue was prepared at the time when
the scientific papers about the first detection of gravitational
waves were being written, and when many people were working hard to
prepare new material for the public announcement. We are very
grateful to the contributors whose time and effort made it possible
to present in the Magazine some stories and images that you might not have seen
before.
Download the magazine
for free now and learn more about GW150914, the first gravitational wave
signal detected by the LIGO observatories.
11.02.2016 - LIGO detects gravitational waves
Today the
LIGO Scientific
Collaboration
announced the first direct
detection of a gravitational wave. About a billion years ago in a
galaxy far away, two black holes were orbiting around each other,
slowly getting closer and closer, until they eventually merged in a
truly cosmic explosion that took just a fraction of a second to
convert three times the mass of our sun into pure energy. This
energy spread through the universe as a ripple in space and time,
until on September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC a part of this
wave passed through the two LIGO detectors in the USA.
Read more about the story
here
. The
published paper with the LIGO results can be found
here
04.02.2016 - Laser Labs is here
Recently we have launched
www.laserlabs.org
, the main web
page of the not-for profit company Laser Labs. And today we
have published our first app,
Pocket Black Hole
for PC and iOS.
We have founded Laser Labs, a Community Interest
Company, with the aim to develop and publish simple but polished
apps for science outreach on modern app stores. Given our interest
in gravitational waves we will first create new versions of
our succesful apps related to Einstein, black holes and
gravitational waves.
Pocket Black Hole is a very simple app
that mimics the light bending effect around black holes.
We are using Pocket Black Hole to test the publication procedures
for mobile apps.
More apps are in development and will be released later this year. Check out
www.laserlabs.org
and follow
@LaserLabsGames
on twitter for
information on our apps, updates and new releases.
18.01.2016 - Fast simulation of Gaussian modes
Our latest paper on fast modelling of Gaussian-mode scattering
has been published and is
available online
(open access).
We were please to see that the article had been promoted as paper of the week by the
Journal of Optics
The Gravitational Wave group has started to provide summaries for
non-experts for our main publications, have a look at our
science
summaries
page!
07.12.2015 - Small update on Black Hole Master
Black Hole Master
is making slow but
steady progress. We have postponed our release to next year, given
that we have less time to work on the game than we initially hoped.
You can find a small status update and a recent screenshot on our
development news
21.10.2015 - 100 years of Einstein!
2015 marks the centenary of General Relativity, and in 2016
it will be 100 years since gravitational waves were first
proposed by Albert Einstein. To celebrate these anniversaries
we will hold a 'meet the expert' event about general relativity,
gravity and gravitational waves at the
ThinkTank Birmingham Science Museum
(Wednesday 28 October,
11am to 4pm). We will bring some of our regular activities
and also hope to show you something new: a fresh version of
our `You are Einstein' app. It is still being developed but we have
already
successfully tested
it in our PhD students' office
and at the recent
Astronomy in the City
event.
02.09.2015 - LIGO Magazine, issue 7, out now!
The LIGO and Virgo collaborations are currently meeting in Budapest
and for this occasion the new issue of the LIGO Magazine has been
published. This is an exciting year with the first science run of
the new LIGO detectors to begin soon, providing new data to analyse
and to search! We explore the connections between
gravitational wave detection and electromagnetic astronomy in a
number of articles and are especially proud to feature an interview
with Joseph Taylor, one of the winners of the 1993 Nobel Prize in
physics for the discovery of the first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16.
Download the magazine
now!
18.08.2015 - Lasers by Siegman
The book
Lasers
by Anthony E. Siegman, sometimes referred to as the `bible' about
lasers, is one of my favourite science books and has been one of the
key references for the development of
Finesse
For many years Siegman's personal webpage at Stanford University
provided a mix of interesting files and text, including a list of corrections
for the book. That webpage has since been removed and I am not aware
of any official location hosting this list of corrections to date.
I have decided to provide the list (the pdf file) at a new permanent location,
hosting the most recent version that I know of at
Please let me know if you are aware of a newer copy, or of any
more official publication of this list.
18.03.2015 - LIGO Magazine, issue 6, out now!
Another March meeting of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations and
another issue of the LIGO Magazine: After featuring life and
work at the Livingston detector site in the previous issue,
this time we feature Hanford and its H1 detector:
the article “Detector Commissioning: Control Room Day and Nights”
tells the story of ongoing commissioning work. We learn about the
life around the LIGO Hanford site, for example with some beautiful
hiking images in “When we’re not doing science.” The article “The
Transition of Gravitational Physics – From Small to Big Science”
represents this issue’s second main feature, starting a series that
will look back at the beginnings of LIGO.
Download the magazine
now!
12.02.2015 - Black Hole Master development started!
We are making
Black Hole Master
, a light-hearted remake of an old
classic, except with a cosmic twist! The original game of Pong
involved each player controlling a paddle which they would use to
bounce a ball back to their opponent; in this remake, each player
now controls a black hole! After our rather simple prototype,
Black Hole Pong
, turned out
to be quite popular at science fairs and outreach events, we wanted to
remake this with professional tools. Our plan is to have something
new to show near the end of this year. You can follow our progress on our
development news pages
10.02.2015 -
Finesse
2.0 all over the world!
Recently we were wondering who might be using or downloading our
simulation software
Finesse
. We do not do any kind of tracking, but the
server hosting the files creates a log file with time and IP address
for each download. Daniel wrote a few scripts putting that data into
more graphical form. You can find two example plots on the
History
and Impact
page. We were happily surprised to see that
Finesse
2.0
has been downloaded more than a 1000 times and that it has spread
across most continents already! (Someone should start a gravitational wave
project in Antarctica!)
27.08.2014 - LIGO Magazine, issue 5, out now!
Once more, we are proud to announce the new issue of the LIGO
Magazine. While members of the collaboration will be able to
get their hands on a paper copy today, you can also
download the magazine
now!
As usual the magazine provides insights into the different
activities of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, this time
focussing on the life and work around the detector site
in Louisiana.
05.06.2014 - Finesse 2.0 USB flash drive
During the GWADW workshop in May 2014 in Japan we distributed
USB flash drives to mark the release of
Finesse
2.0.
The USB drives contained the
latest binaries along with a collection of documents
(papers, notes and presentations) about
Finesse
that may be useful for those interested in optical simulations.
Also included are
Finesse
input files for all the major
gravitational wave detectors:
Advanced LIGO, Advanced VIRGO, KAGRA, GEO600 and the Einstein Telescope, that you can experiment with.
For those who did not attent the workshop we offer the
USB
drive image for download
21.05.2014 - Finesse 2.0 out now!
Almost one year after reaching version 1.0 we have now released a
major upgrade of our interferometer
simulation software
Finesse
. The
upgrade included several long-requested feature, such as the
possibility to model radiation pressure effects on suspended optics
and to perform a full quantum noise analyses of interferometer
output signals, including squeezed light and other quantum noise
reduction techniques. The new program is coming with an updated manual and
many new examples. See the
Finesse
download page
for more information.
19.03.2014 - LIGO Magazine, issue 4, out now!
The forth issue of the
LIGO Magazine
is out!
With the magazine we try to provide insights into the different
activities of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
If you want to know more about gravitational waves or how
large international science communties operate,
download the magazine
now!
28.01.2014 - PyKat, from Matlab to Python
Numerical modelling for the design or commissioning
of laser interferometer often involves a series of related tasks.
At some point it becomes more efficient to write scripts to automate
the sequence of tasks. This has also the advantage of documenting
the full activity from preparing the models to the post-processing
of the result. So far we have used a set of Matlab tools (
Simtools
) to automate modelling with
Finesse
Now are moving to Python using
PyKat
The move away from Matlab to Python has been on our To-Do list
for a while. A big part of automating Finesse simulations consists
of parsing and writing text files, for which Matlab is not ideal.
More importantly Matlab licences can be very expensive so
that many people cannot use our Matlab tools. Python, especially
the interactive
IPython
, combines
easy string handling with an intuitive interactive shell and the
possibility to write reasonably elegant and readable script files.
PyKat
has been written by Daniel Brown and
is available as an open source Python package. It has already
been used for serious work, the examples included in the package
provide the results presented in the document:
`Comparing Finesse simulations, analytical solutions and
OSCAR simulations of Fabry-Perot alignment signals'
(available for download:
). Try it out! Contributions and suggestions
to the Python code are very welcome too!
07.12.2013 - Modelling efforts
One of my favourite activities is to use numerical simulations to
model real laser interferometers. The three links below show you
some examples on what we have been working on during the last
months.
Investigation of beam clipping in the Power Recycling Cavity of Advanced LIGO using FINESSE
a LIGO technical note by Charlotte Bond, Paul Fulda et al.
Revisiting
Sidebands of Sidebands in Finesse
a LIGO technical note by Jordan Clarke, Haoyu Wang et al.
Modelling mirror surface distortion effects in low-loss, near-unstable Fabry-Perot cavities
a poster by Daniel Brown et al., see also the screenshot below.
25.11.2013 - PhD positions available
Are you interested in advanced laser optics? Do you want to set up
your own experiment, or would you like to contribute to one of the
largest interferometer projects world-wide? Are you excited by
porting numerical algorithms to GPUs and would you like to compare
numerical models directly with experiments? We have PhD positions
available now (start date October 2014, apply by 15. December 2013).
For more information see our
groups's PhD admission page
and the
project descriptions on
my research page
04.11.2013 -
Finesse
1.1 has been released
A new version of Finesse is
available for download
. (You can also compile it
directly from the source code
.)
The coupling of multiple frequency components has been completely
rewritten. Now all laser fields and modulator sidebands are computed
simultaneously (rather than sequentially as before). This change is
a necessary preparation for the implementation of radiation pressure
and quantum noise effect. It has the bonus feature of allowing the
correct modelling of `sidebdands of sidebands' (such as created by
two modulator components in series).
This is mostly a bug fixing release: We have changed a lot of
the underlaying code, in preparation for the implementation of
radiation pressure effects. This release marks the point in
which all our tests produce the same results as before.
For a full list of changes since version 1.0 see the file
CHANGES
14.10.2013 - New paper
Today a new paper has been published on the arxiv.org server:
Sensitivity of intra-cavity filtering schemes for
detecting gravitational waves
by Mengyao Wang et al.
Also, I realised that I never added a news item about our video
paper! Already published in August, this is still worth a look:
We demonstrate our recipe for creating pure, high-power ring-shaped
laser beams:
27.09.2013 -
Finesse
Syntax Highlighting
Recently some new files have been submitted by
Finesse
users
Emil Schreiber and Will Vousden, so that Syntax Highlighting modes for
Finesse
are now
available for Emacs, Vim, SublimeText (and TextMate, Textastic),
Notepad++ and Ultraedit. You can download the necessary files
from the
GEO Simulation Group Wiki
and of course
Finesse
from
this page
25.09.2013 - The LIGO Magazine, issue 3
The third issue of the
LIGO Magazine
is out now!
In this issue we bring you stories about the squeezing of light,
a relatively recent concept from quantum optics, which might sound 'strange'.
Hopefully the stories in the magazine will help to make squeezed light a little bit less strange.
If you want to know more about
gravitational waves and about what is going on in our community
download the magazine
now!
08.09.2013 - New plotting library for Processing
Our plotting library
gwoptics
for the
Processing
programming environment has been updated to version 0.5 and is now
fully compatible with Processing 2.0. Give it a go, it also works
on Android!
The library provides basic plotting functions for making 2D or 3D
graphs with Processing. The examples included in the package
show you how to plot data
streams, data from lists or files or the output of equations.
10.08.2013 - Finding Black Holes with Lasers
In February 2013 I was invited by the
Institute of Physics
to give a lecture in the
famous lecture theatre of the
Royal Institution of Great Britain
as part of their Physics in Perspective series. I was to expect about 400 students and teachers
from schools across the country. The IOP has now published a
recording of my
presentation on youtube
01.07.2013 - Testing, testing, testing ...
The main work behind the scenes of the release of
Finesse
1.0 has been the
testing, debugging and checking of the source code and of
the simulation results. We are planning to collect
this material and publish it as notes on the arxiv server. Today the
first of these has arrived:
Interferometer responses
to gravitational waves: Comparing FINESSE simulations and analytical solutions
by Charlotte Bond et al. It shows not only example
Finesse
results but also
analytic solutions for simple interferometer responses - something we felt was lacking
in the online literature.
06.06.2013 - Announcing
Finesse
1.0
After more than 13 years of work and 25 releases we are proud to announce
version 1.0 of the interferometer simulation tool
Finesse
Finesse
is a fast and relatively easy to use software to simulate
laser interferometers. It can be used for detector commissioning,
interferometer design, or simply for learning more about laser
optics. It is freely available for many platforms and fully open
source. We also provide simple examples and an extensive manual.
Of course, we will continue to extend and improve
Finesse
. This version 1.0 completes
the open source release of
Finesse
after a period of extensive testing and optimising
the modeling of higher-order modes for beam shape changes and mirror surface distortions.
The future of
Finesse
lies in the implementation of radiation pressure effects and quantum
noise calculations; in fact, we have already started work on this.
08.04.2013 - Recently published...
We have been quite busy recently and have submitted four new papers
to the
arxiv.org
pre-print server. These
papers provide a good glimpse into the work we do in our group, from
investigating optical effects in detail to the design of future
gravitational wave detectors. The
pre-print server is open access, so have a look:
D. Lodhia et al.:
`Phase effects due to beam misalignment on diffraction
gratings'
M. Wang et al.:
`A realistic polarizing Sagnac [...] with DC readout for the
Einstein Telescope'
L. Carbone et al.:
`Generation of high-purity [...] Laguerre-Gauss beams at high
laser power'
D. Brown et al.:
`Invariance of waveguide grating mirrors to lateral displacement phase
shifts'
20.03.2013 - The LIGO Magazine, issue 2
I am pleased to present the second issue of the
LIGO Magazine
! This
issue of the magazine of the
LIGO
Scientific Collaboration (LSC)
features articles about black holes, and the astrophysics and data
analysis that LIGO can do to find out more about these elusive
objects. We also include a mix of conference reports, news items and
stories from the detector sites. If you want to know more about
gravitational waves and about what is going on in our community
download the magazine
now!
18.01.2013 - Gravitational Waves in Korea
Our Korean colleagues have organized their first gravitational
wave conference
Gravitational
Waves: New Frontier
. The talks cover a wide range of existing
and planned projects. The slides are
available
for download
, have a look!
09.01.2013 - Stargazing Live in Birmingham
Today and on Saturday this week, we are taking part in a
BBC Stargazing Live event on the University Birmingham campus.
We are showing our exhibition
Looking for Black Holes with lasers
with a new
addition: the
Mirror Suspension model
with the full Advanced LIGO BOSEMs
and control electronics.
It's been a lot of fun so far with a great audience, see
the
queue in front of the Physics building
22.10.2012 - Some software updates
Thanks to Reinier Jonker at NIKHEF we can now also provide
Dutch version of Space Time
Quest
We have also posted a new Processing sketch
Reflection
which demonstrated how
electromagnetic waves behave at an optical surface.
At the moment all our
interactive applets
are based on Java applets, but because Java is disappearing from
browsers more and more we plan to re-post all the interactive
sketches as HTML5+Javascript, making use of Processing's Javascript
mode.
13.09.2012 - Space Time Quest 1.2 released
A new version of
Space Time
Quest
has been released. If you want to know how we design gravitational wave detectors such as
Advanced LIGO or the Einstein Telescope, download
the game
and try for yourself!
The main changes are:
The Windows version now comes as a native program with a
proper
installer
. So, no Java requirements anymore! This should
make the program much more accessible!
The game is now available in
Chinese
, thanks to Mengyao Wang
who performed the translation!
We fixed a bug that sometimes caused a magic increase in the
budget. The
high scores
should be more
accurate now.
But, yes, the infamous
parrot
is still around.
12.09.2012 - The new LIGO Magazine
The
LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC)
today has published the first
issue of a new magazine: The
LIGO Magazine
has been
designed for the scientific collaboration itself as the main
audience. However, it is published as a
free download
(pdf file) and
I believe that this magazine is an interesting read also for people outside
that community. It contains a lot of articles, stories and
fascinating photos,
have a look
05.09.2012 - History and impact of
Finesse
It is now 15 years since we had the idea to create the interferometer simulation
Finesse
The software has been used for more than 10 years to design and improve optical systems and it
is time to have a look at the impact it had. I have started collecting references to
scientific reports and papers that reference
Finesse
and so far I have found 56 such documents.
Have a look at that list and read about the
History and Impact of
Finesse
! Please let me know if you know of other documents that should be listed here.
03.06.2012 - Lies and statistics for
gw
optics
.org
During the last weeks I had a look at the
gw
optics
.org user
statistics. Here is quick summary in case you are interested (or
you can have
look at some
plots
): The
data extracted from the webserver logfiles show a
steady and fast increase in visitors to
gw
optics
.org since its
launch, with currently an average of 140 unique visitors per day and
more than 100,000 page impressions per month.
Google currently counts more than 1500 incoming links to the
gw
optics
.org webpage. Within one year from its first release we have achieved
almost 10,000 downloads of
Space Time Quest
and have close to 5000
downloads for
Black Hole Pong
. The online
high-scores
table for Space Time Quest
shows over 5000 entries.
18.03.2012 - Open source release of
Finesse
Our interferometer simulation
Finesse
has become open source!
Not only can you download the source code, but we have also setup
a professional
Redmine
project page
for
Finesse
with a
bug
tracker
, a
Wiki
user
forums
and an easy way
to
view
the code online
. Have a look around and get involved! We are happy
to help by answering questions in the forums and welcome any kind of
contribution to the development of
Finesse
In addition the
main
Finesse
page
has
been improved, now hosting more examples and links to useful tools.
Please let me know if you have an interesting
Finesse
example to share!
21.02.2012 - Photos from around the GW community
For a while I have been posting the odd photo from around the
gravitational wave community on my tumblr blog:
If you would like to share some
interesting pictures, please let me know!
18.02.2012 - Upgrade your optical layouts
Do you sometimes need an illustration of an optical layout?
Then
ComponentLibrary
might be
something for you!
This free and open vector graphics library of optics components has
been used to illustrate a great many notes, papers and PhD
thesis. Now, it's your turn to upgrade your optical layouts!
ComponentLibray
has been developed by
Alexander Franzen at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover.
17.11.2011 - New paper on our Processing activities
Our first paper on using
Processing
for science
outreach has been submitted and is now available on the
pre-print server:
The paper describes some of the background for the existence of
this webpage, i.e. the idea to develop small computer
applications to be used for educational purposes and to teach
gravitational waves physics. Our
Processing sketches
are the main result of this activity with the two computer-games related
to gravitational wave science:
Black
Hole Pong
and
Space Time Quest
as the highlights.
11.11.2011 - Space Time Quest 1.1.0 released
A new version of
Space Time Quest
has been released today. We fixed some bugs and changed the way the
final score is computed: instead of a detection range you now
collect events, i.e. detections of supernovae, neutron stars and
black holes. You can see the new score system in action
in our online
hall of fame
As part of our effort to translate our material into other languages
Space Time Quest
is now
also
available in Spanish
31.10.2011 - Translations of
our gravitational wave Ebook
Our
GW Ebook
, a collection of short texts explaining the
basics of gravitational wave detection, is now available
in several languages! Do you ever wonder how to say
`A Laser is a very special type of light source' in
Spanish
German
Italian
or
Chinese
Well, here is your chance to find out!
Also, if you have non-English speaking friends who are interested
in science or astronomy, maybe you could introduce them
to gravitational waves using these pages.
11.09.2011 - Squeezed light at GEO 600
Today, Nature Physics has published a paper about the implementation
of squeezed light at the
GEO 600 detector
: `A gravitational wave
observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit',
For the first time the squeezed light technology has been used to
increase the sensitivity of an astronomical observatory. The
same technology is scheduled to be tested at the Advanced LIGO
detectors.
06.09.2011 - Laguerre Gauss modes at
the Glasgow prototype
Research groups from the University of Birmingham
and the University of Glasgow are currently testing the feasibility of using
ring-shaped laser beams for future gravitational
wave detectors.
This video by Paul Fulda provides a
behind-the-scenes view of
an ongoing research programme.
The preliminary
results shown here have been presented by
Borja Sorazu at the
Amaldi conference in Cardiff 2011
31.05.2011 - gwoptics.org in Physics World
The
gw
optics
.org pages have been reviewed by
Physics World
! If you happen
to have the May 2011 issue laying around, check page 41, it makes a
short but interesting read. If you cannot get the print version,
apparently
an online version of the review
is available as well.
20.05.2011 - Images of the Einstein Telescope
Today
Einstein
gravitational wave Telescope
conceptual design has been
officially presented at an event in Pisa (Italy).
The design study document itself more than 400 pages long
and full with details details. However some
images and the layout of the Einstein Telescope
nicely
visualise the dimension and complexity of the machine.
11.05.2011 - LIGO games
Our games
Space Time Quest
and
Black
Hole Pong
are now listed amongst other
LIGO
related
games on the
LIGO
outreach pages
Time to start working on
Black Hole Battle
, the new incarnation of Black Hole Pong.
10.03.2011 - Space Time Quest
Space Time Quest
is here!
You can now
download the game
and see all
the
high scores
online.
Build your own gravitational wave detector and see if you
can beat the scores of the experts!
Space Time Quest is a manager-simulation type game. The player
can use a limited budget to design a gravitational wave detector.
The goal is to maximise the sensitivity by adjusting several subsystem
parameters correctly. This game has been developed as part of our
outreach programme in the Gravitational Wave Group in Birmingham;
our aim was to
create a fun game that is easy to play, looks good and gives some
insight into the complexity of gravitational wave detectors.
At the moment the game does not come with much explanation;
however there is a simple
'how to play' video
to get you started.
02.03.2011 - Chirp Music
Do you know the sound of a gravitational wave? Listen to this!
Inspiral Signal
is an online applet that shows the orbit of two colliding
black holes and plays the characteristic chirp of the space
time ripples they cause.
22.02.2011 - Augmented Reality Pendulum
A computer plus webcam create an `augmented reality': a virtual pendulum which hangs
from the marker and follows its motion, and the motion of your hands, as a real pendulum would do.
More info, a video and the application itself are available on the
Augmented Reality Pendulum
page.
20.02.2011 -
gw
optics
on twitter
This site is now one year old and we have assembled quite
a bit of material. Much of this site is dedicated to bring
gravitational wave science to the people. Thus it is time to
reach out: you can follow us on twitter
at
@gwoptics
and
@GW_Birmingham
to get
news and info about our activities! Please spread the word!
14.02.2011 - SimTools:
Matlab functions for optical simulations
After a two years long break, I have now uploaded a new
version
of
SimTools
. Previous
versions mainly provided functions to automatically parse
and/or create text input files for other simulation
programs, such as
Finesse
. Version
0.6 now included many more mathematical functions related to Gaussian
beams and optical simulations.
07.01.2011 - You are Einstein
Another fun application to be used in science events and
exhibitions has been uploaded.
You are Einstein
is a Processing application that gives you and your friends the Einstein look.
13.12.2010 - How does a gravitational waves
detector work?
Do you know how a gravitational wave detector works?
Have a look at our
E-book
on gravitational wave detection
and find out!
This is a collection of very short texts and some
illustrations describing in simple terms what
gravitational waves are and how we use lasers to detect them.
28.10.2010 - Black Hole Pong, a classic game revisited
A summer student project this year has led to another
Processing program worth sharing: This is
Black
Hole Pong
, a remake of the classic
Pong
with
a new twist. It is of course an educational game, illustrating
the ways of gravity - but you probably won't even notice that
because it is also very fast and quite difficult.
01.09.2010 - The British Science Festival
is coming to Birmingham
We will use a few new
Processing sketches
in the exhibition
`Looking
for Black Holes with Lasers'
by the Gravitational Wave Group. More
details about the software will be posted here after the exhibition.
24.06.2010 - Source code available for
Processing applets
The full source code is now available for the
Processing
applets:
Pendulum
Stimulated Emission
Michelson Interferometer 1
Gaussian Beam Viewer
and
Cavity Calculator 1
16.04.2010 - Luxor (the GUI for Finesse) is
back
The download page for
Luxor
, the graphical user
interface for Finesse had disappeared some time ago
and a new one needs to be setup.
Jan Harms send me the files to host them here in the
meantime and you can find Luxor now on this new
page.
Give it a go.
19.03.2010 - Our Processing library
`gwoptics' now available
From today on, our own library for the Processing language
is available for download. The library
gwoptics
provides 2D
and 3D plotting capabilities, which come in handy for
optical simulations. The best example for its use is the
Gaussian Beam Viewer
. The library (as
Processing) is open source and comes with basic
documentation and examples.
25.02.2010 - New review article published
Today, a new review article
Interferometer Techniques for Gravitational-Wave Detection
has been published in
Living Reviews in Relativity
The article is free to access, available as a pdf file or as an online webpage, and it covers a lot of
background material for learning about interferometry and optics used for gravitational wave detectors.
17.02.2010 - Shoot the asteroid!
If you need a break from the optical simulations or are looking for first steps
in programming for kids, you should have a look at our
Scratch rocket game
- and don't
forget to shoot the asteroids!
21.01.2010 - Finesse version 0.99.8 released
A new version of
Finesse
is now available for
The main changes to previous versions are the possibility to use mirror maps
and an updated manual, see the file
CHANGES
for a detailed list of changes.
16.01.2010 - added new Processing sketch `Stimulated Emission'
The
GW detectors
page features a addition to the
series of Processing sketches explaining parts of a gravitational wave detector: the
Stimulated Emission
sketch illustrates
how a simple laser works through the process of stimulated emission.
13.01.2010 - www.gwoptics.org online for testing
The first draft version of the webpage is now online.
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