FINESSE Workshop
As part of the LIGO-India training program, IUCAA conducted a FINESSE Hackathon for students from colleges across India in March 2020 under the aegis of the Newton-Bhabha program, an Indo-U.K. collaboration. FINESSE is an advanced gravitational-wave detector simulation software widely used within the global gravitational-wave community and is used to model interferometers such as Advanced LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA. This fundamental tool is used to explore new designs for future detectors as well as troubleshoot the present-day detectors in improving their performance. ‘Hands-on Interferometer Modelling’ is a good way for aspiring young researchers and college students to acquire a detailed knowledge of LIGO-like detectors and the mathematical modelling of such complex optical interferometers.
The FINESSE Hackathon 2020 was preceded by an in-depth training program under the mentorship of professional researchers from the international group of FINESSE experts. Anna Green, Philip Jones, Sean Leavy and Gautam Venugopalan held a focussed FINESSE Workshop in December 2019 at IUCAA to bring the selected students and researchers together and impart intense hands-on training. Several web-based tools and workbooks were developed by the mentors so that the students may work through them at their own pace. This material serves as training material for future workshops and wider online resources as well.
The winning team of this FINESSE Hackathon would have the opportunity to go for a two-week internship at one of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration institutions in Europe once international travel resumes.
To sustain interest and encourage students across India to take up modelling interferometers we would be shortly announcing a FINESSE Club, where interested students would be encouraged and mentored to take up interferometer modelling projects.
