LIGO-India
An Indo-US joint mega-project concept proposal
IndIGO Consortium
(Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations)
www.gw-indigo.org
Version: pII_v3 Jun 21, 2011 : TS
LIGO-India: Salient points of the megaproject
• On Indian Soil with International Cooperation (no competition)
• Part of major science discovery credit  Shared science risk with
International community
• AdvLIGO setup & initial challenge/risks primarily rests with USA.
–
–
AdvLIGO-USA precedes LIGO-India by > 2 years.
Vacuum 10 yr of operation in initial LIGO  2/3 vacuum enclosure + 1/3 detector assembly
split (US ‘costing’ : manpower and h/ware costs)
– opportunity without primary responsibility
• US hardware contribution funded & ready
–
–
•
•
•
•
advLIGO largest NSF project
LIGO-India needs NSF approval but not additional funds
Expenditure almost completely in Indian labs & Industry
Significant Industrial capability upgrade.
Well defined training plan. Large high level trained HRD
Major data analysis centre for the entire LIGO network
Schematic Optical Design of Advanced LIGO detectors
Reflects International cooperation
Basic nature of GW Astronomy
LASER
AEI, Hannover
Germany
Suspension
GEO, UK
LIGO-India: unique once-in-a-generation opportunity
LIGO labs LIGO-India ?
Advanced LIGO Laser
• Designed and contributed by Albert Einstein Institute, Germany
• Much higher power (to beat down photon shot noise)
– 10W
 180W
• Better stability
– 10x improvement in intensity and frequency stability
• Well beyond current Indian capability, require years of focused R &D
effort. Both power and stability ratings
• Adv LIGO laser has spurred RRCAT to envisage planning development of
such lasers in India in the next 5 year plans. IIT M group also interested.
• Multiple applications of this development
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
5
Advanced LIGO Mirrors
•
• Larger size
– 11 kg  40 kg, 35 cm
• Smaller figure error
– 0.7 nm  0.35 nm
• Lower absorption
– 2 ppm  0.5 ppm
• Lower coating thermal noise
Surface : 10 x best optical telescope
• Surface quality on such size unavailable in
India
Feb 2011 Status
• Indian industry can be challenged to replicate
• All substrates delivered
on small scale for TIFR 3m prototype
• Polishing underway
• Reflective Coating process starting
up
• Technology
for such mirror useful for optical
metrology
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
6
Advanced LIGO Seismic Isolation
• Two-stage six-degree-of-freedom active isolation
– Low noise sensors, Low noise actuators
– Digital control system to blend outputs of multiple sensors,
tailor loop for maximum performance
– Low frequency cut-off: 40 Hz  10 Hz
• Unique design
• New benchmark for isolation experiments in
India : gravitation, …
• Application in various industrial and lab test
centers
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
7
Advanced LIGO Suspensions
• UK designed and contributed
test mass suspensions
•
Silicate bonds create quasimonolithic pendulums using
ultra-low loss fused silica fibres
to suspend interferometer optics
– Pendulum
Q ~105  ~108
four stages
40 kg silica test
mass
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
8
8
LIGO-India: unique once-in-a-generation opportunity
“Quantum measurements”
to improve further via squeezed light:
• Potential technology spin-offs will impact quantum computing and
quantum key distribution (QKD) for secure communications.
• New ground for optics and communication technology in India
• High Potential to draw
the best Indian UG students, typically
interested in theoretical physics, into experimental science !!!
LIGO-India: Expected Indian Contribution
• Indian contribution in Engineering. & infrastructure:
 Ultra-high Vacuum enclosure on large scale (1.)
 Site (L-configuration: Each 50-100 m x 4.2 km) (4.)
 HPC -Data centre (5.)
• Indian contribution in human resources:
 Trained Scientific & engineering manpower for detector
assembly, installation and commissioning (2.)
 Trained SE manpower for LIGO-India sustained operations for
next 10 years (3.)
 Major enhancement of Data Analysis team. Seek Consolidated
IndIGO participation in LIGO Science Collab. (Sept 2011)
 Expand theory and create numerical relativity simulation.
Expect hiring in premier institutions
1. Large scale ultra-high Vacuum enclosure
S.K. Shukla (RRCAT),A.S. Raja Rao (ex RRCAT),
S. Bhatt (IPR), Ajai Kumar (IPR)
•To be fabricated by Industry with designs from LIGO. A pumped volume of 10000m3
(10Mega-litres), evacuated to an ultra high vacuum of 10-9 torr (pico-m Hg).
o Spiral welded beam tubes 1.2m in diameter and 20m length.
o Butt welding of 20m tubes together to 200m length.
o Butt welding of expansion bellows between 200m tubes.
o Gate valves of 1m aperture at the 4km tube ends and the middle.
o Optics tanks, to house the end mirrors and beam splitter/power and
signal recycling optics vacuum pumps.
o Gate valves and peripheral vacuum components.
o Baking and leak checking
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
LIGO Beam Tube
Constructed > 1 decade back.
Operating in Initial LIGO for ~10yrs
1.2 m diameter - 3mm stainless
50 km of weld
LIGO-G1100108-v1
•
LIGO beam tube under
construction in January 1998
•
16 m spiral welded sections
•
girth welded in portable
clean room in the field
NO LEAKS !!
(10Mega-litres at nano-torr)
Major Engg. Challenge
Unprecedented scale
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
Beam Tube Construction
beamtube
transport
beamtube
install
Concrete
Arches
girth
welding
LIGO-G1100108-v1
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
LIGO beam tube enclosure
• minimal enclosure
• reinforced concrete
• no services
LIGO-G1100108-v1
IndIGO - ACIGA meeting
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
14
LIGO Vacuum Equipment
• Large vacuum chamber fabrication under stringent UHV
requirement
• Significant capability upgrade for Indian industry
• Comparable, but smaller UHV chambers in IPR facility
LIGO-G1100108-v1
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
Large scale ultra-high Vacuum enclosure
• Fabricated and installed by Indian Industry under close
monitoring by science & technology team
o Oversee the procurement & fabrication of the vacuum system components and its
installation.
o If the project is taken up by DAE then participation of RRCAT & IPR is more intense
o All vacuum components such as flanges, gate-valves, pumps, residual gas
analyzers and leak detectors will be bought. Companies L&T, Fullinger, HindHiVac,
Godrej with support from RRCAT, IPR and LIGO Lab.
• Preliminary detailed discussions with Industry in Feb 2011 :
Companies like HHV, Fullinger in consultation with Stan Whitcomb (LIGO), D.
Blair (ACIGA) since this was a major IndIGO deliverable to LIGO-Australia.
• Preliminary Costing for LIGO-India vacuum component is 400 cr.
Detector Installation using Cleanrooms
•
Chamber access
through large doors
LIGO-G1100108-v1
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
Optics Installation Under
Cleanroom Conditions
•High precision skills
• Low contamination labs & trained manpower for
related Indian labs & industry
• Application in other sciences, eg. Material sciences,
Space , biotech ,…
LIGO-G1100108-v1
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
2. Detector Assembly & Commissioning
For installation and commissioning phase:
• Identify 10-15 core scientists (postdoctoral) who spend a year, or
more, at Advanced LIGO-USA during its install. & comm.
– LIGO proposal document
– Already 1 IndIGO post-doc at LIGO Caltech, another under consideration in
LIGO and EGO
– Need positions back in India for them! (If project sanctioned, manpower
sanctioned, LIGO-India project hiring required at institutions like RRCAT, TIFR,
IUCAA,….)
• 6 full time engineers and scientists in India.
Present experimental expertise within IndIGO
Laser ITF: TIFR, RRCAT, IITM, IIT K.
UH Vacuum: RRCAT, exRRCAT, IPR
Can scale to 10 Post-doc/PhD students. Over 2-3 years. Train on 3-m prototype too.
IndIGO 3m Prototype Detector
Funded by TIFR Mumbai on compus (2010)
PI: C. S. Unnikrishnan (Cost ~ INR 2.5 crore)
Vibration isolation
schematic
Laser table
Sensing &
Control
180 cm
All mirros and beamsplitters
are suspended as in the diagram on right
Power recycling
Detector
Vacuum
tanks
F-P cavity
3.2 meters
0.8 m
Mirror
60 cm
LIGO-India: … the challenges
3. Manpower generation for sustenance of LIGO-India :
Preliminary Plans & exploration
• Since Advanced LIGO will have a lead time, participants will be identified
who will be deputed to take part in the commissioning of Advanced LIGO
and later bring in the experience to LIGO-India. They will start building
groups with associated training program.
• Successful IndIGO Summer internships in International labs underway
o High UG applications 30/40 each year from IIT, IISER, NISERS,..
o 2 summers, 10 students, 1 starting PhD at LIGO-MIT
o Plan to extend to participating National labs to generate more experimenters
• IndIGO schools are planned annually to expose students to emerging opportunity in
GW science
o 1st IndIGO school in Dec 2010 in Delhi Univ. (thru IUCAA)
• Post graduate school specialization courses , or more
Jayant Narlikar: “Since sophisticated technology is involved IndIGO should like
ISRO or BARC training school set up a program where after successful
completion of the training, jobs are assured.”
Indo-US centre for Gravitational
Physics and Astronomy
APPROVED for funding (Dec 2010)
• Centre of the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF)
• Exchange program to fund mutual visits and facilitate interaction.
• Nodal centres: IUCAA , India & Caltech, US.
• Institutions:
Indian: IUCAA, TIFR, IISER, DU, CMI - PI: Tarun Souradeep, IUCAA
US:
Caltech, WSU
- PI: Rana Adhikari, Caltech
LIGO-India: … the challenges
4. Indian Site
Requirements:
• Low seismicity
• Low human generated noise
• Air connectivity
• Proximity to Academic institutions, labs, industry preferred, …
Preliminary exploration:
IISc new campus & adjoining campuses near Chitra Durga
• low seismicity
• Solid rock base
• 1hr from International airport
• Bangalore: science & tech hub
• National science facilities complex plans  power and
other infrastructure availability, ….
5. IndIGO Data Centre@IUCAA
Anand Sengupta, DU, IndIGO
 Primary Science: Online Coherent search for GW signal from
binary mergers using data from global detector network
Coherent  4 x event rate (40  160 /yr for NS-NS)
 Role of IndIGO data centre
 Large Tier-2 data/compute centre for archival of GWdata and analysis
 Bring together data-analysts within the Indian gravity wave community.
 Puts IndIGO on the global map for international collaboration with LIGO
Science Collab. wide facility. Part of LSC participation from IndIGO
 Large University sector participation via IUCAA
• 200 Tflops peak capability (by 2014)
• Storage: 4x100TB per year per interferometer.
• Network: gigabit+ backbone, National Knowledge Network
• Gigabit dedicatedlink to LIGO lab Caltech
• 20 Tf 200 Tb funded IUCAA : ready Mid 2012
Indian Gravitational wave strengths
• Very good students and post-docs produced in Indian GW groups.
* Leaders in GW research abroad [Sathyaprakash, Bose, Mohanty] (3)
*Recently returned to faculty positions at premier Indian institutions (6)
[Gopakumar, Archana Pai, Rajesh Nayak, Anand Sengupta, K.G. Arun, Sanjit
Mitra, P. Ajith?]
– Gopakumar (?) and Arun (?) : PN modeling, dynamics of CB, Ap and cosmological
implications of parameter estimation
– Rajesh Nayak (UTB  IISER K) , Archana Pai (AEI  IISER T), Anand Sengupta (LIGO,
Caltech Delhi), Sanjit Mitra (JPL  IUCAA ): Extensive experience on single and multidetector detection, hierarchical techniques, noise characterisation schemes, veto
techniques for GW transients, bursts, continuous and stochastic sources, radiometric
methods, …
– P. Ajith (Caltech, LIGO/TAPIR  ? ) ……
– Sukanta Bose (Faculty UW, USA  ?)
Strong Indian presences in GW Astronomy with Global detector network  broad
international collaboration is the norm  relatively easy to get people back.
•
•
Close interactions with Rana Adhikari (Caltech), B.S. Sathyaprakash (Cardiff),
Sukanta Bose ( WU, Pullman), Soumya Mohanty (UTB), Badri Krishnan ( AEI) …
Very supportive Intl community reflected in Intl Advisory committee of IndIGO
LIGO-India: … what is needed?
Organizational
 National level DST-DAE Consortium Flagship Mega-project
 Identify a lead institution and agency
 Project leader
Construction: Substantial Engg project building Indian capability in large
vacuum system engg, welding techniques and technology
 Complex Project must be well-coordinated and effectively carried out
in time and meeting the almost zero-tolerance specs
Train manpower for installation & commissioning
 Generate & sustain manpower running for 10 years.
 Site
 short lead time
 International competition (LIGO-Argentina ??)
Technical
 vacuum enclosure (tubes & end station)
 Detector assembly and commissioning
Data centre
Concluding remarks on LIGO India
• Home ground advantage !!! Once in a generation opportunity
• Threshold of discovery and launch of a new observational window
in human history!! Century after Einstein GR, 40 yrs of Herculean global effort
• Cooperative, not competitive science
• India at the forefront of GW science with 2nd generation of detectors:
Intl. shared science risks and credit
• Low project risk: commit to established tech. yet are able to take on
challenges of advLIGO (opportunity without primary responsibility)
“Every high
singletechnology
technology gains
they’refor
touching
pushing, and there’s
• Attain
Indian they’re
labs & industries
a lot of different technologies they’re touching.”
(Beverly Berger, National Science Foundation Program director for gravitational physics. )
• India pays true tribute to fulfilling Chandrasekhar’s legacy:
”Astronomy is the natural home of general relativity”
An unique once-in-a-generation opportunity for India. India could
play a key role in Intl. Science by hosting LIGO-India.
Deserves a National mega-science initiative
LIGO-India: Action points
If accepted as a National Flagship Mega Project under
the 12th plan then…
– Seed Money
Thank you !!!
– Identification of 3-6 project leaders
– Detailed Project Proposal
– Mobilize industry and lab partnership & training
– Site identification & acquisition
– 1st Staffing Requirement meeting Aug 1-15
– 2nd Joint Staffing Meeting with LIGO-Lab
– Vacuum Task related team and plans
LIGO-India: Project team requirements
LIGO-India: … the challenges
LIGO-India Director
Project manager
Project engineering staff:
Civil engineer(s)
Vacuum engineer(s)
Systems engineer(s),
Mechanical engineers
Electronics engineers
Software engineers
Detector leader
Project system engineer
Detector subsystem leaders
10-15 talented scientists or research engineers
with interest and knowledge collectively spanning:
Lasers and optical devices, Optical metrology, handling and cleaning,
Precision mechanical structures, Low noise electronics, Digital control systems
and electro-mechanical servo design, Vacuum cleaning and handling)
Logistics and Preliminary Plan
• Assumption: Project taken up by DAE as a National Mega
Flagship Project.
All the persons mentioned who are currently working in their centers would be mainly in a
supervisory role of working on the project during the installation phase and training manpower
recruited under the project who would then transition into the operating staff.
• Instrument Engineering: No manpower required for design and
development activity. For installation and commissioning phase
and subsequent operation
• Laser ITF: Unnikrishnan, Sendhil Raja, Anil Prabhaker.
TIFR, RRCAT, IITM. 10 Post-doc/Ph.D students. Over 2-3 years.
Spend a year at Advanced LIGO. 6 full time engineers and
scientists. If project sanctioned, manpower sanctioned, LIGOIndia project hiring at RRCAT, TIFR, other insitututions/Labs.
Logistics and Preliminary Plans
42 persons (10 PhD/postdocs, 22 scientists/engineers and 10 technicians)
• Mobile Clean rooms:
– Movable tent type clean rooms during welding of the beam tubes and assembly of the
system. Final building a clean room with AC and pressurization modules. SAC, ISRO. 1
engineer and 2 technicians to draw specs for the clean room equipments & installation.
• Vibration isolation system: 2 engineers (precision mechanical)
– install and maintain the system. Sourced from BARC. RED (Reactor Engineering
Division of BARC) has a group that works on vibration measurement, analysis and
control in reactors and turbo machinery.
• Electronic Control System: 4 Engineers
– install and maintain the electronics control and data acquisition system.
Electronics & Instrumentation Group at BARC (G. P. Shrivastava’s group) and
RRCAT.
– Preliminary training:six months at LIGO. Primary responsibility (installing and
running the electronics control and data acquisition system): RRCAT & BARC.
Additional activity for LIGO-India can be factored in XII plan if the approvals
come in early.
… Logistics and Preliminary Plans
Teams at Electronics & Instrumentation Groups at BARC may be interested
in large instrumentation projects in XII plan.
• Control software Interface: 2 Engineers
– install and maintain the computer software interface, distributed
networking and control system). RRCAT and BARC. Computer software
interface (part of the data acquisition system) and is the “Humanmachine-interface” for the interferometer. For seamless
implementation man power to be sourced from teams implementing
Electronic Control System.
• Site Selection & Civil Construction
– BARC Seismology Division Data reg. seismic noise at various DAE sites
to do initial selection of sites and shortlist based on other
considerations such as accessibility and remoteness from road traffic
etc. DAE: Directorate of Construction, services and Estate Management
(DCSEM): Co-ordinate design and construction of the required civil
structures required for the ITF. 2 engineers + 3 technicians (design &
supervision of constructions at site). Construction contracted to
private construction firm under supervision of DCSEM.
LIGO-India vs. Indian-IGO ?
Primary advantage: LIGO-India Provides cutting edge instrumentation &
technology to jump start GW detection and astronomy.
Would require at least a decade of focused & sustained technology developments
in Indian laboratories and industry
•
180 W Nd:YAG: 5 years;
– Operation and maintenance should benefit further development in narrow line width lasers.
– Applications in high resolution spectroscopy,
– precision interferometry and metrology.
• Input conditioning optics..Expensive..No Indian manufacturer with such specs
• Seismic isolation (BCE,HAM) .. Minimum 2 of years of expt and R&D.
– Experience in setting up and maintaining these systems  know how for
isolation in critical experiments such as in optical metrology,
AFM/Microscopy, gravity experiments etc.
• 10 interferometer core optics.. manufacturing optics of this quality and
develop required metrology facility : At least 5 to 7 years of
dedicated R&D work in optical polishing, figuring and metrology.
• Five quadruple stage large optics suspensions systems.. 3-4 years of
development.. Not trivial to implement.
– Benefit other physics experiments working at the quantum limit of noise.
Advanced LIGO
• Take advantage of new technologies and on-going R&D
>> Active anti-seismic system operating to lower frequencies:
(Stanford, LIGO)
>> Lower thermal noise suspensions and optics :
(GEO )
>> Higher laser power 10 W  180 W
(Hannover group, Germany)
>> More sensitive and more flexible optical configuration:
Signal recycling
• Design: 1999 – 2010 : 10 years of high end R & D
internationally.
• Construction: Start 2008; Installation 2011; Completion 2015
LIGO-India: unique once-in-a-generation opportunity
LIGO labs LIGO-India
• 180 W pre-stabilized Nd:YAG laser
• 10 interferometer core optics (test masses, folding mirrors, beam splitter, recycling mirrors)
• Input condition optics, including electro-optic modulators, Faraday isolators, a suspended mode-cleaner (12-m
long mode-defining cavity), and suspended mode-matching telescope optics.
• 5 "BSC chamber" seismic isolation systems (two stage, six degree of freedom, active isolation stages
capable of ~200 kg payloads)
• 6 "HAM Chamber" seismic isolation systems (one stage, six degree of freedom, active isolation stages
capable of ~200 kg payloads)
• 11 Hydraulic External Pre-Isolation systems
• Five quadruple stage large optics suspensions systems
• Triple stage suspensions for remaining suspended optics
• Baffles and beam dumps for controlling scattering and stray radiation
• Optical distortion monitors and thermal control/compensation system for large optics
• Photo-detectors, conditioning electronics, actuation electronics and conditioning
• Data conditioning and acquisition system, software for data acquisition
• Supervisory control and monitoring system, software for all control systems
• Installation tooling and fixturing
LIGO-India: Salient points of the megaproject
• On Indian Soil will draw and retain science & tech. manpower
• International Cooperation, not competition LIGO-India success critical to the success
of the global GW science effort. Complete Intl support
• Shared science risk with International community 
Shared historical, major science discovery credit !!!
• AdvLIGO setup & initial challenge/risks primarily rests with USA.
– AdvLIGO-USA precedes LIGO-India by > 2 years.
– India sign up for technically demonstrated/established part (>10 yr of operation in initial LIGO ) 
2/3 vacuum enclosure + 1/3 detector assembly split (US ‘costing’ : manpower and h/ware costs)
– However, allows Indian scientist to collaborate on highly interesting science & technical challenges
of Advanced LIGO-USA ( ***opportunity without primary responsibility***)
• Expenditure almost completely in Indian labs & Industry huge potential for
landmark technical upgrade in all related Indian Industry
• Well defined training plan
core Indian technical team thru Indian postdoc in related exptal areas
participation in advLIGO-USA installation and commissioning phase, cascade to training at Indian expt. centers
• Major data analysis centre for the entire LIGO network with huge potential
for widespread University sector engagement.
• US hardware contribution funded & ready advLIGO largest NSF project, LIGOIndia needs NSF approval but not additional funds
HAM Chamber
LIGO-G1100108-v1
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb
1. Large scale ultra-high Vacuum enclosure
S.K. Shukla (RRCAT),A.S. Raja Rao (ex RRCAT),
S. Bhatt (IPR), Ajai Kumar (IPR)
•To be fabricated by Industry with designs from LIGO. A pumped volume of 10000m3
(10Mega-litres), evacuated to an ultra high vacuum of 10-9 torr (pico-m Hg).
o Spiral welded beam tubes 1.2m in diameter and 20m length.
o Butt welding of 20m tubes together to 200m length.
o Butt welding of expansion bellows between 200m tubes.
o Gate valves of 1m aperture at the 4km tube ends and the middle.
o Optics tanks, to house the end mirrors and beam splitter/power and
signal recycling optics vacuum pumps.
o Gate valves and peripheral vacuum components.
o Baking and leak checking
Courtesy: Stan Whitcomb