The US Program in Ground-Based Gravitational Wave Science: Contribution from the LIGO Laboratory
Creators: name: Reitze, David
name: Abbott, Rich
name: Adams, Carl
name: Adhikari, Rana
name: Aggarwal, Nancy
name: Anand, Shreya
name: Ananyeva, Alena
name: Anderson, Stuart
name: Appert, Stephen
name: Arai, Koji
name: Araya, Melody
name: Aston, Stuart
name: Barayoga, Juan
name: Barish, Barry
name: Barker, David
name: Barsotti, Lisa
name: Bartlett, Jeffrey
name: Betzwieser, Joseph
name: Billingsley, GariLynn
name: Biscans, Sebastien
name: Biscoveanu, Sylvia
name: Blackburn, Kent
name: Blair, Carl
name: Blair, Ryan
name: Bockelman, Brian
name: Bork, Rolf
name: Bramley, Alyssa
name: Brooks, Aidan
name: Brunett, Sharon
name: Buikema, Aaron
name: Cahillane, Craig
name: Callister, Thomas
name: Carruthers, Tom
name: Clara, Filiberto
name: Corban, Paul
name: Coughlin, Michael
name: Couvares, Peter
name: Cowart, Matthew
name: Coyne, Dennis
name: Demos, Nicholas
name: Donovan, Fred
name: Driggers, Jenne
name: Dwyer, Sheila
name: Effler, Anamaria
name: Eisenstein, Robert
name: Etzel, Todd
name: Evans, Matthew
name: Evans, Tom
name: Feicht, Jon
name: Fernandez-Galiana, Alvaro
name: Fritschel, Peter
name: Frolov, Valery
name: Fyffe, Michael
name: Gateley, Bubba
name: Giaime, Joe
name: Giardina, Dwayne
name: Goetz, Evan
name: Gossan, Sarah
name: Gras, Slawomir
name: Grassia, Philippe
name: Gray, Corey
name: Gupta, Anchal
name: Gustafson, Eric
name: Guthman, Les
name: Hall, Evan
name: Hanks, Jonathan
name: Hanson, Joe
name: Hasskew, Raine
name: Haster, Carl-Johan
name: Heintze, Matthew
name: Hernandez, Edgar
name: Holt, Kathy
name: Huang, Yiwen
name: Huynh-Dinh, Tien
name: Isi, Max
name: Jones, Jeff
name: Kamai, Brittany
name: Kanner, Jonah
name: Kasprzack, Marie
name: Katsavounidis, Erik
name: Katzman, William
name: Kawabe, Keita
name: King, Peter
name: Kissel, Jeffrey
name: Kondrashov, Veronica
name: Korth, William
name: Kozak, Dan
name: Kumar, Rahul
name: Landry, Michael
name: Lane, Benjamin
name: Lanza, Robert
name: Laxen, Michael
name: Lazzarini, Albert
name: Lecoeuche, Yannick
name: Libbrecht, Ken
name: Lo, Ka-Lok
name: London, Lionel
name: Lormand, Marc
name: MacInnis, Myron
name: Mansell, Georgia
name: Markowitz, Aaron
name: Maros, Ed
name: Marx, Jay
name: Mason, Ken
name: Massinger, Thomas
name: Matichard, Fabrice
name: Mavalvala, Nergis
name: McCarthy, Richard
name: McCormick, Scott
name: McCuller, Lee
name: McIver, Jessica
name: Mendell, Gregory
name: Merilh, Edmond
name: Meshkov, Syd
name: Mittleman, Richard
name: Moraru, Dan
name: Moreno, Gerardo
name: Mullavey, Adam
name: Nelson, Timothy
name: Ng, Kwan-Yeung
name: Noh, Minkyun
name: O'Reilly, Brian
name: Oberling, Jason
name: Oram, Richard
name: Osthelder, Charles
name: Overmier, Harry
name: Parker, William
name: Pedraza, Mike
name: Pele, Arnaud
name: Perez, Carlos
name: Petterson, Danielle
name: Pirello, Marc
name: Raab, Fred
name: Radkins, Hugh
name: Mohapatra, Satyanarayan Ray Pitambar
name: Richardson, Jonathan
name: Robertson, Norna
name: Rollins, Jameson
name: Romel, Chandra
name: Romie, Janeen
name: Ryan, Kyle
name: Sadecki, Travis
name: Sanchez, Eduardo
name: Sanchez, Luis
name: Savage, Richard
name: Schaetzl, Dean
name: Sellers, Danny
name: Shaffer, Thomas
name: Shoemaker, David
name: Sigg, Daniel
name: Strunk, Amber
name: Sudhir, Vivishek
name: Sun, Ling
name: Tao, Duo
name: Taylor, Robert
name: Thomas, Michael
name: Thomas, Patrick
name: Thorne, Keith
name: Torrie, Calum
name: Traylor, Gary
name: Trudeau, Randy
name: Tse, Maggie
name: Vajente, Gabriele
name: Vass, Steve
name: Venugopalan, Gautam
name: Vitale, Salvatore
name: Vorvick, Cheryl
name: Wade, Andrew
name: Wallace, Larry
name: Warner, Jim
name: Weaver, Betsy
name: Weinstein, Alan
name: Weiss, Rainer
name: Whitcomb, Stan
name: Whittle, Chris
name: Willis, Joshua
name: Wipf, Christopher
name: Xiao, Sophia
name: Yamamoto, Hiro
name: Yu, Hang
name: Yu, Haocun
name: Zhang, Liyuan
name: Zucker, Michael
name: Zweizig, John
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Recent gravitational-wave observations from the LIGO and Virgo observatories have brought a sense of great excitement to scientists and citizens the world over. Since September 2015,10 binary black hole coalescences and one binary neutron star coalescence have been observed. They have provided remarkable, revolutionary insight into the "gravitational Universe" and have greatly extended the field of multi-messenger astronomy. At present, Advanced LIGO can see binary black hole coalescences out to redshift 0.6 and binary neutron star coalescences to redshift 0.05. This probes only a very small fraction of the volume of the observable Universe. However, current technologies can be extended to construct "$3^\mathrm{rd}$ Generation" (3G) gravitational-wave observatories that would extend our reach to the very edge of the observable Universe. The event rates over such a large volume would be in the hundreds of thousands per year (i.e.tens per hour). Such 3G detectors would have a 10-fold improvement in strain sensitivity over the current generation of instruments, yielding signal-to-noise ratios of 1000 for events like those already seen. Several concepts are being studied for which engineering studies and reliable cost estimates will be developed in the next 5 years.
description: For the 2020 Astro decadal