News Physics

How quantum ‘squeezing’ will help LIGO detect more gravitational waves

Scientists expect to see 65 percent more collisions between massive objects like black holes

A photo of LIGO equipment.

An upgrade to some of LIGO’s equipment (shown) will dramatically boost the number of collisions scientists will see among massive, distant objects like black holes and neutron stars.

Wenxuan Jia/MIT

By James R. Riordon

Putting the squeeze on light improves gravitational wave observatories.

An upgrade to one such observatory, LIGO, that comes from exploiting a quantum rule known as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle makes it easier to spot spacetime ripples that arise from some of the cosmos’s most violent events.