International Summer Research Program in Gravitational-Wave Physics:
Research Experiences for Undergraduates around the world


University of Western Australia and AIGO (Gingin)
Director: Prof. David Blair
UWA is the closest University to the AIGO site in Gingin and David Blair's group is responsible for the installation and commissioning of most parts of the detector. AIGO will be used as a high power test facility for Advanced Detector configurations for, say, Advanced LIGO. Experimental tests will involve the characterization of high power laser beams in all their degrees of freedom and how they are compromised by thermally distorted optical components. In addition, the installation and characterization of suspensions and of environmental monitors like seismometers and wind meters is also part of the ongoing work at AIGO. Most of these experiments can be easily done or supported by REU students supervised by one of the many senior scientists or postdocs on site.