Top physicists from the University of Glasgow are set to develop the next generation of gravitational wave detectors, with the help of over £1million of funding from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC).

Eight Scottish universities are to benefit from nearly £8 million from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council's (SHEFC) Strategic Development Grant to develop Scotland's research base.

Commenting on the awarding of £1,118,076 towards gravitational wave research, Dr Sheila Rowan of the University of Glasgow's Department of Physics & Astronomy said:

"The money is going towards a facility which we believe will help build on our current research and expand it further in both the gravity wave field and also into new areas."

"Some of our recent work has focused on materials characterisation for gravity wave detector instrumentation both on the ground and in space, and this grant will help fund a materials characterisation clean laboratory and equipment."

The new facility is aimed at providing the infrastructure to do research on materials needed for three key areas:

*'3rd generation' gravitational wave detectors on the ground possibly operating at cryogenic temperature;

*The joint ESA-NASA space-based gravitational wave detector LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) planned for launch in 2014. LISA is a three-spacecraft mission, designed to detect the 'ripples' in space given out when very massive objects undergo strong acceleration;

*Glasgow scientists hope it may also contribute to missions such as the planet finding mission 'Darwin' which is likely to use technologies related to those developed for the gravitational wave detector work.

The facility is also intended to complement the materials facilities already in the department that are focussed on nano-characterisation work, and allow increased interdisciplinary links within Physics and Astronomy.

"The detection and study of gravitational radiation is of great scientific importance," Dr Sheila Rowan explains.

"It opens up a new window on the universe through which may come unique information about a variety of astrophysical systems - supernova explosions, black hole formation, pulsars and coalescing compact binary objects. It is also possible that totally unexpected discoveries will be made, in much the same way as has occurred in radio and x-ray astronomy."

Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

For more details please contact the University Press Office on 0141 330-3535. Fuller details on the LISA mission can be found at: http://www.esa.int/science/lisa

First published: 1 August 2005