Why LIGO-Australia??

1. Why LIGO-Australia?? • 1) the science is ground-breaking and the technology that it involves can have impact beyond just the project. • 2) LIGO-Australia is a great opportunity for Indian scientists to engage with both Australian and US scientists, and Indian participation might be the difference between it happening or not. • 3) the IndIGO Consortium is committed to pursue this research, even if LIGO-Australia does not happen. If LIGO-Australia doesn't come about, IndIGO still intends to pursue membership in the LSC and GWIC and will continue to work to develop the capability for an Indian detector, but the path will be longer and harder.

2. What is presently needed for LIGO-Australia? • At the moment, a strong expression of interest from India is the most important factor, with the amount being somewhat secondary. I believe that scientific collaboration with India is a priority for Australia, and this is one of our strongest points. • It may be that, if the Australian government gets interested in the project, they might ask India for a larger contribution. No need to raise that issue now

3. LIGO-Australia Manpower • ~50 members. Professors, post-docs, Ph.D students and Technicians who are fully engaged with GW research (including data analysis) • Project staff would be about 25-30 (mix of scientists (~10), engineers (~5-8), and technicians. • Staff level would smoothly transition to the operating staff. • During the construction, a small number of these staff (mostly the engineers) would be responsible for over-seeing the work of the companies doing the buildings, site preparation and the vacuum system construction installation and testing. • Others during this time (mostly the scientists) would spend time at LIGO-US to learn about Advanced LIGO,so that they are ready to lead the detector installation once that starts in LIGO-Australia.

4. Strategy • Most of the scientists would start off at the postdoc level (during their training time with Advanced LIGO) and then become the core operating staff for the facility as well as working on improvements and upgrades. Many of these younger scientists would be recruited from the current postdoc staff in ACIGA. • Suresh Doravari at LIGO is one of these scientists • Expect leaders of the main experimental groups (Jesper, David McClelland and David Blair, and the 1-2 other younger faculty that each has working with them) would assist with training the scientists and helping to understand and commission the detectors once they are operating. They would keep their faculty positions at their home university, and spend part of their time at the site in Gingin doing this work and supervising the work of the less experienced scientists.

5. Abhay Ashtekar • Indeed, chances in Australia as per their Ministry are low. But because they are not zero, NSF does not want to be seen as doing anything to discourage them. • They do strongly encourage India to develop plans for possibly hosting the site in India. They appear to be satisfied, to first order,that at least some Indian sites would not be that much different from the Australian sites in terms of polarization measurements, source location etc. I understand that their knowledge comes from Bernie Schutz which in turn may have come from Sathya. HOWEVER, NSF will have to do a proper review before making a decision. This is where our worries about adequacyof human resources and infra-structure become very important. It would be a pity if you put in a lot of work and even secured funding but the review is negative.

6. Abhay Ashtekar • The National Science Board has been told that NSF will report to them on foreign locations by October. Strictly they do not have to 2Km put the detector back in the Hanford site right away. But political realities are such that they will not be able to delay too long in absence of concrete opportunities from abroad that they can point to and say that they are waiting to move the detector there (or they will be asked: if the 2Km detector is not essential did they mislead the science board and the congress when they requested funding for it?) • In October there does not have to be a complete commitment of funds. But there should be concrete plans on Indian (or Australian) side on achieving the stated goals. • Suppose no one comes through in time and the 2Km detector is buried in Hanford. It is not out of question that a year or two later they could dig it out and send it elsewhere if a golden opportunity arose. But this is not guaranteed because it will cost some 10-20Million dollars to dig it out.

7. Bernard Schutz - AEI • A few senior LIGO people are talking about maybe "mothballing" the second Hanford detector and finding another site. People have talked about Europe (not an option) and S America (no local project). To me it seems like the most natural alternative would be India. Have you thought about getting yourselves ready to put in a bid for it, of course only when and if the Australian option fails? I would certainly strongly support the idea, provided you yourselves felt you could handle the creation of the infrastructure needed for it. • I am reassured that you have already taken this up. I would be very happy to cooperate with Abhay. I am quite sure the AEI would support a credible initiative in this direction. We supply the Advance LIGO laser, and have already given LIGO permission to use it in Australia instead of Hanford. I am quite sure that there would be no problem switching this to India if people knew there was sufficient support from the government for infrastructure. I am pretty sure this would also apply to the suspension work that Glasgow puts into Advanced LIGO. I will alert Jim, Sheila, and Karsten to this but not spread the word more widely at the moment.

8. JV Narlikar • My first reading of it shows that it is a well thought out programme and deserves to be followed up by the Indian scientific community. • I understand that the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram has an arrangement whereby the undergraduates who are recruited at IISST are fully supported by ISRO and they have to sign a bond under which they will work for ISRO for a certain number of years after their graduation. This arrangement provides ISRO with much needed human resources and also on the other side, gives the students an assurance that they have a job waiting for them after their graduation. I suggest that your Consortium could consider instituting scholarships for bright students studying in some IISERs with a somewhat similar arrangement. This may solve your human resource problem when the bigger versions of the prototype are under construction.

9. ACIGA in LIGO-India??? Difficulties.. • While all of ACIGA universities are within an easy single plane flight of Gingin, so that the university-based staff can easily participate and still fulfill their university obligations. Australia to India travel is still at least a 12 hour trip (and possibly more depending on where in India) so this will reduce the amount of help the university based ACIGA members can give. • May not be as easy to recruit the core scientific staff (the 10 younger scientists) from the current postdoc/PhD student pool in ACIGA to come to LIGO-India. Some might find that a grand adventure, both scientifically and culturally, but it is never easy for people to leave their home country (cultural ties, family ties).

10. IndIGO Strategy • Need a very aggressive training program to bring Indian experimenters up to speed quickly if this project goes forward. • Rana can give the most help by agreeing to be responsible for training the core team of Indian scientists in the US, working on Advanced LIGO. He would be willing to do that, placing people into the right places here to contribute and learn, before returning to India to lead the installation and commissioning of LIGO-India (Stan) • Stan supports the idea, and will make every effort to help that he can, within the constraints he has. An advisory role from the US, with perhaps periodic visits, a maximum time in India might be 6-8 weeks per year.

11. Sendhil Raja RRCAT • If we have to switch roles with Australia in the LIGO-Australia project, and implement it it in India, it is "do-able" from a technology point of view as the key components (optics and lasers) of the interferometer (which would take a sizable development time) would be made available by LIGO. So in collaboration with LIGO setting up the interferometer is definitely a realisable project from a technical point of view, but we need to take into account other issues such as decision on location/site, site development, civil infrastructure and rapid manpower generation/training(so the time scale be longer than what LIGO-Australia has projected). We also would have to prioritize this work over other commitments that we are currently in. From a financial standpoint we may have an advantage, my estimate is that we can do the project at 25% lower cost than the estimate by LIGO-Australia. So in my opinion it is definitely worth a try to pitch for LIGO-India if the offer is made.

12. Anil Prabhakar IITM • If Australia helps with technical know-how/transfer and we have the experts currently available for LIGO-Australia, then yes, LIGO-India is feasible. • 10 people working full-time can be organized if we a) create Indigo positions and hire on it. (e.g. see attached proposal to DBT that was just submitted) b) get people to move on deputation (see attached ministry recommendations for such projects)

13. Unni to Anil • I looked at the sample proposal that you sent. I also looked at the technology objectives mentioned. We cannot attract people by just offering large salaries speculating that they will do well (the NCBS young investigator program so far only has given out 'standard' researchers, like any other good post-docs) -salaries that exceed PM's for ordinary researchers. I do not think IndIGO can operate in that mode. But that is not the main point. Let me just say that we are talking about a sophistication level for GW detector that is order of magnitude larger and more precise and demanding than anything that has been actually done by most of us on technology front.Perhaps you know it already. Perhaps some of us can meet the demands, with good effort, but this needs to be proved and that is why we have fairly precise proposals for the 12th plan. Of course we are really good at what will happen after the detector is commissioned - using it for astronomy. • Some IndiGO position can be created, perhaps at a larger salary than what the government usually recommends, but that by itself will not help unless people who are already experienced volunteer to build up the team of 10 that you mention.

14. Unni - TIFR • The answer to your question depends on many factors. If you are asking whether LIGO-India can be built with ACIGA and IndiGO roles reversing, then I would put a 6-8 year time scale for completion even after 10 people here volunteer to do full time. So, it is possible in principle, but not efficient. • Without LIGO full help (as in LIGO Australia), if we think of a parallel detector to be completed in that time scale, I think it will not be possible given the constraints on lead manpower. • Question of expertise is not really the full issue. There are a few isolated experts doing other things. So, if these people come together a detector over much larger time scale is possible (perhaps 10+ yrs), with some help from LIGO/ACIGA and related industrial partners. • So, as Sendhil pointed out, the only practical path is to work with LIGO-Australia and then built up from that experience. In any case, if the event rate is very small in advanced detectors for some reason (a few per year), it is not clearto me that whether one should go for one more, except for improved duty cycle.

15. Unni TIFR • I do not think that we can keep the time line that LIGO is demanding even if such a scenario is discussed. LIGO/NSF wants the detector ready with other ones, latest by 2017 perhaps. IndIGO will not be able to do this because of the many many steps that needs to be climbed locally, apart from site and so on. ACIGA a good team in place already and we do not have it, and that is worth anything between 3-5 years. I think this piece of communication is one of the most important that has happened so far in the context of IndIGO. It clearly reflects how much confidence has been built up in our interactions with people who are the top in the community trying to build the next detector. Today decision makers in NSF and LIGO are willing to consider the possibility of a LIGO-IndIGO. As all of you know I was not so supportive of even taking up the suggestion of LIGO-IndIGO at this stage. However, after seeing mails from Abhay and Stan I will not discourage at any stage a discussion in this matter. Some of my guesses regarding it are true as mentioned in Stan's mail (his not being able to spend time here, ACIGA's much reduced expected contribution etc.) I told Dr. Kaw that NSF perhaps will not consider an offer to India, but that may turn out to be wrong finally. .

16. Unni • As I see it that kind of suggestion can be taken forward if Sathya, Rana and Sukanta can come together for LIGO-IndIGO, and not in any other way practically. So, Plan B according to me will be something like that. You can see that NSF may feel confident with such a team