India may soon get world's 3rd LIGO project

India will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States for building a state-of-the-art Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project in the country on 30 March. The project, aimed at studying gravitational waves, comes nearly a month after the discovery of gravitational waves.

DAE secretary Sekhar Basu will sign the agreement in the US today - marking the start of the collaboration between the US' National Science Foundation (NSF) and India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Science and Technology (DST).

The MoU also states of forming a Joint Oversight Group (JOG) with the scientists from NSF, DAE and DST for better coordination of the project. A meeting to decide the site for setting up the laboratory in India will take place by 10 April.

LIGO-India will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of an 8 km-long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a levelled terrain.

Once established, the India LIGO will be the third in the world. Two underground detectors are located in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana.

- With agency inputs