Welcome to gwoptics.org! These pages provide information and software related to gravitational wave detection, with a special focus on optics research. This page also hosts outreach material of the Gravitational Wave Group Birmingham, UK, supporting the efforts by GEO 600 and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

News

30.06.2021 - Einstein Telescope enters the ESFRI Roadmap

Today the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has announced that the Einstein Telescope will be included in its 2021 roadmap for large European infrastructures. This is an important acknowledgment of the ET project on an international and governmental level after many years of work to design the observatory, develop the science case and form the supporting scientific collaboration.

ESFRI roadmap icon

24.06.2021 - Special issue on software for gravitational waves

A new special issue on Software that Contributed to Gravitational Wave Discovery has now been published in SoftwareX. The issue combines several articles that describe a wide range of software tools which provided significant contributions towards the first detection of gravitational waves, for example, in support of the development of the instruments, the detector operation or the analysis of the detector data. The special issue includes our article Pykat: Python package for modelling precision optical interferometers with the most up-to-date description of Finesse and Pykat.

SoftwareX icon

29.04.2021 - Finesse 3.0a1, first alpha release

In late 2017 we started the development of Finesse 3, a re-implementation of Finesse in Python, with the idea to provide a modern and clean code base that makes further developing and extending the software simpler, especially for external contributors. After four years, with a small team of core contributors, we have come a long way: the source code and documentation are growing quickly, and we are excited to test-drive this new version. Today we reached our first major milestone, the first release of an alpha version: Finesse 3.0a1. (Note that this version is not yet meant for general use, for that we recommend Finesse 2 instead.)

Finesse 3 icon

26.04.2021 - Einstein Telescope, new impressions

As part of the preparations for our ESFRI application of the Einstein Telescope, we not only prepared a number of new documents, including an updated design, but Marco Kraan (Nikhef) also produced new artists impressions of the ET infrastructure, as a video and several still images.

ET icon

26.02.2021 - Interferometer simulation logbooks

Already last year we established a new website to host logbooks for interferometer simulations: https://logbooks.ifosim.org/. Logbooks are a common tool for recording progress in collaborative research projects, in particular for large hardware projects such as gravitational wave detectors. Logbooks record and preserve who did what when and thus over time create a searchable archive of expert knowledge. We adopted the same format here with the aim of generating a long term archive of interferometer models and simulations.

Ifosim icon

01.01.2021 - Site Redesign

gwoptics.org! has now been online for over a decade! With the help of a previous student of mine, Aaron Jones, the site has been updated for another decade of use!

Chirp icon

31.12.2020 - Papers, papers, papers

2020 was certainly an unusual year, so we are extra happy to have been able to submit to the following results to arXiv server. All of these results are peer reviewed, see links therein for the journal references:

gwoptics

09.09.2020 - Einstein Telescope submitted to ESFRI

Yesterday the Einstein Telescope was submitted to the European Stratagy Forum on Research Infrastructures. This submission marks the moment when we formalize the support and enthusiasm for this project and was supported by scientists in 41 research institutes from 10 countries!

Read more in the Nikhef press release.

gwoptics

04.03.2019 - Chirp notifications

Today we released a major update of your Chirp app. The mobile version (iOS, Android) now received push notifications for new gravitational wave events. This makes it even easier to stay up to date with LIGO and Virgo. Download it now while LIGO and Virgo are still taking data in their third data taking run!

Chirp icon

01.11.2019 - Chirp, gravitational wave alerts

LIGO and Virgo have just started the second part of their third data taking run (O3b). Just in time, we have released 'Chirp', a mobile app that provides easy access to all the gravitational wave alerts (new and previous) sent out by LIGO and Virgo.

Chirp icon

27.08.2019 - Interferometer modeling and Finesse hackathon

This week we welcome 20 people from around the world to Birmingham for a hands-on workshop on interferometer modeling. The workshop is supported by a Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship which is jointly funded by the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation. We will use Finesse and Pykat to advance our understanding of current gravitational wave detectors and towards designing the next generation. At the same time some of us will get together for a hackathon focussed on Finesse 3, the next generation incarnation of our software.

Finesse

01.06.2017 - A new black hole

Today LIGO has published an article on Physics Review Letters announcing the detection of a new signal from colliding black holes: GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2. The newfound black hole, formed by the merger, has a mass about 49 times that of our sun. This fills in a gap between the masses of the two merged black holes detected previously by LIGO, with solar masses of 62 (first detection) and 21 (second detection). This result is the first outcome of LIGO's second current observing run, which began November 30, 2016, and will continue through this summer. In parallel the LIGO collaboration is working on technical upgrades for LIGO's next run, scheduled to begin in late 2018, during which the detectors' sensitivity will be improved.

You Are Einstein

31.05.2017 - Papers, papers, papers

Writing research papers is usually a major milestone within longer research projects. And the writing process itself often seems to be as difficult as the actual research. Therefore it always a great moment when our papers appear on the arxiv pre-print server. At this stage the peer review is still ongoing, but the two really difficult parts of the job are done. We are happy to have the following three instrument related papers recently submitted to the arxiv server:

gwoptics

15.03.2017 - All about interferometry

Our new review article Interferometer Techniques for Gravitational-Wave Detection is available now. More than 200 pages about laser interferometry, with a particular focus on its application for gravitational wave detection. This open access article was originally published in 2010. This version represents a major update, including additional topics, such as spatial laser beam modes and how to deal with them. The article is free to access, available as a pdf file or as an online webpage.

gwoptics

15.03.2017 - Issue 10 of the LIGO Magazine

Issue 10 of the LIGO Magazine has been published today. If you happen to be at the LIGO-Virgo meeting today you can grab a paper copy. Everyone else, get the pdf version online.

This is the first issue of the Magazine without me as editor in chief. Ever since founding the magazine five years ago, I very much enjoyed the buzz when the team of editors worked on a new issue. I also learned that making a good magazine takes hard work and a lot of time, especially near the end of a production cycle. After five years, and with a detection issue to boot, I felt it was time to hand the magazine over to someone with fresh eyes and new ideas. Jocelyn Read has agreed to be the new editor in chief and this issue is already her first result. Have a look!

LIGO Magazine issue10

01.03.2017 - Let's talk about Finesse

We have recently moved some of our optical modelling tools to new LIGO servers. If you are interested in optical modelling, or are a Finesse user, and you have a login for LIGO-Virgo computer systems, please join us at https://chat.ligo.org/ligo/channels/finesse. (We have 23 people in the chat channel as I am writing this). At the same time we have moved the source code for Finesse and Pykat to the Gitlab servers at LIGO. We hope that with this move our activity will become more accessible to other members in the collaboration.

Finesse 2.1

09.10.2016 - Black Hole Master available for testing

After some internal testing by gravitational-wave groups, Black Hole Master is now available for testing to everyone. At this stage the game does not yet have a single-player mode. But the two-player mode is quite stable and fun to play! If you have a friend available, and two game controllers, head over to the Black Hole Master page at Laser Labs and start playing!

Black
	Hole Master

01.09.2016 - The LIGO Magazine is out!

The latest issue of the LIGO Magazine is available now. We of course report on the second detection of gravitational waves, but the main focus is on our efforts in outreach and public engagement, from a collage of tweets echoing the excitement of the first detection, to the story of Birmingham students about making a new exhibit for the Birmingham ThinkTank Science Museum. Download the magazine for free now and see for yourself.

LIGO Magazine issue9

21.07.2016 - TEDx talk in Birmingham

My colleague Alberto Vecchio and myself were invited to speak at TEDxBrum, an annual, individually organised TED event in Birmingham, UK. The preparation of a TED-style talk and also to participate in the event itself on June 11th 2016 proved to be new and fun experiences for us. You can now watch the talk on Youtube, I also collected some impressions from the event.

gwoptics

07.05.2016 - Talk at PyData London

Today I am giving a keynote presentation at the PyData London conference. I will talk about detecting gravitational waves with LIGO, and give a brief overview of our use of Python for interferometer simulations. The presentation has been recorded and the slides are available for download as a pdf file.

gwoptics

22.04.2016 - New versions of Finesse and PyKat

Today we have released Finesse 2.1 and PyKat 1.0. Finesse 2.1 is a bug-fix release improving the new features introduced in version 2.0. See the CHANGES file for a complete list of fixes and changes.

PyKat is a Python interface for our interferometer simulation Finesse that allows us to run and share our models and results using IPython notebooks. We have been exclusively using PyKat for several months now and recommend this as the best way to use Finesse.

Finesse 2.1

07.03.2016 - The new LIGO Magazine is here!

The latest issue of the LIGO Magazine has been published today. This issue was prepared at the time when the scientific papers about the first detection of gravitational waves were being written, and when many people were working hard to prepare new material for the public announcement. We are very grateful to the contributors whose time and effort made it possible to present in the Magazine some stories and images that you might not have seen before. Download the magazine for free now and learn more about GW150914, the first gravitational wave signal detected by the LIGO observatories.

LIGO Magazine issue8

11.02.2016 - LIGO detects gravitational waves

Today the LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced the first direct detection of a gravitational wave. About a billion years ago in a galaxy far away, two black holes were orbiting around each other, slowly getting closer and closer, until they eventually merged in a truly cosmic explosion that took just a fraction of a second to convert three times the mass of our sun into pure energy. This energy spread through the universe as a ripple in space and time, until on September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC a part of this wave passed through the two LIGO detectors in the USA. Read more about the story here. The published paper with the LIGO results can be found here.

gwoptics

04.02.2016 - Laser Labs is here

Recently we have launched www.laserlabs.org, the main web page of the not-for profit company Laser Labs. And today we have published our first app, Pocket Black Hole, for PC and iOS.

We have founded Laser Labs, a Community Interest Company, with the aim to develop and publish simple but polished apps for science outreach on modern app stores. Given our interest in gravitational waves we will first create new versions of our succesful apps related to Einstein, black holes and gravitational waves.

Pocket Black Hole is a very simple app that mimics the light bending effect around black holes. We are using Pocket Black Hole to test the publication procedures for mobile apps. More apps are in development and will be released later this year. Check out www.laserlabs.org and follow @LaserLabsGames on twitter for information on our apps, updates and new releases.

Laser Labs

18.01.2016 - Fast simulation of Gaussian modes

Our latest paper on fast modelling of Gaussian-mode scattering has been published and is available online (open access). We were please to see that the article had been promoted as paper of the week by the Journal of Optics. The Gravitational Wave group has started to provide summaries for non-experts for our main publications, have a look at our science summaries page!

Finesse 2.0

07.12.2015 - Small update on Black Hole Master

Black Hole Master is making slow but steady progress. We have postponed our release to next year, given that we have less time to work on the game than we initially hoped. You can find a small status update and a recent screenshot on our development news.

Black
	Hole Master

21.10.2015 - 100 years of Einstein!

2015 marks the centenary of General Relativity, and in 2016 it will be 100 years since gravitational waves were first proposed by Albert Einstein. To celebrate these anniversaries we will hold a 'meet the expert' event about general relativity, gravity and gravitational waves at the ThinkTank Birmingham Science Museum (Wednesday 28 October, 11am to 4pm). We will bring some of our regular activities and also hope to show you something new: a fresh version of our `You are Einstein' app. It is still being developed but we have already successfully tested it in our PhD students' office and at the recent Astronomy in the City event.

You Are Einstein

02.09.2015 - LIGO Magazine, issue 7, out now!

The LIGO and Virgo collaborations are currently meeting in Budapest and for this occasion the new issue of the LIGO Magazine has been published. This is an exciting year with the first science run of the new LIGO detectors to begin soon, providing new data to analyse and to search! We explore the connections between gravitational wave detection and electromagnetic astronomy in a number of articles and are especially proud to feature an interview with Joseph Taylor, one of the winners of the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16. Download the magazine now!

LIGO Magazine issue7

18.08.2015 - Lasers by Siegman

The book Lasers by Anthony E. Siegman, sometimes referred to as the `bible' about lasers, is one of my favourite science books and has been one of the key references for the development of Finesse.

For many years Siegman's personal webpage at Stanford University provided a mix of interesting files and text, including a list of corrections for the book. That webpage has since been removed and I am not aware of any official location hosting this list of corrections to date. I have decided to provide the list (the pdf file) at a new permanent location, hosting the most recent version that I know of at http://www.gwoptics.org/research/lasers_book_errata.pdf. Please let me know if you are aware of a newer copy, or of any more official publication of this list.

gwoptics

18.03.2015 - LIGO Magazine, issue 6, out now!

Another March meeting of the LIGO and Virgo collaborations and another issue of the LIGO Magazine: After featuring life and work at the Livingston detector site in the previous issue, this time we feature Hanford and its H1 detector: the article “Detector Commissioning: Control Room Day and Nights” tells the story of ongoing commissioning work. We learn about the life around the LIGO Hanford site, for example with some beautiful hiking images in “When we’re not doing science.” The article “The Transition of Gravitational Physics – From Small to Big Science” represents this issue’s second main feature, starting a series that will look back at the beginnings of LIGO. Download the magazine now!

LIGO Magazine issue6

12.02.2015 - Black Hole Master development started!

We are making Black Hole Master, a light-hearted remake of an old classic, except with a cosmic twist! The original game of Pong involved each player controlling a paddle which they would use to bounce a ball back to their opponent; in this remake, each player now controls a black hole! After our rather simple prototype, Black Hole Pong, turned out to be quite popular at science fairs and outreach events, we wanted to remake this with professional tools. Our plan is to have something new to show near the end of this year. You can follow our progress on our development news pages.

Black
	Hole Master

10.02.2015 - Finesse 2.0 all over the world!

Recently we were wondering who might be using or downloading our simulation software Finesse. We do not do any kind of tracking, but the server hosting the files creates a log file with time and IP address for each download. Daniel wrote a few scripts putting that data into more graphical form. You can find two example plots on the History and Impact page. We were happily surprised to see that Finesse 2.0 has been downloaded more than a 1000 times and that it has spread across most continents already! (Someone should start a gravitational wave project in Antarctica!)

Finesse 2.0

27.08.2014 - LIGO Magazine, issue 5, out now!

Once more, we are proud to announce the new issue of the LIGO Magazine. While members of the collaboration will be able to get their hands on a paper copy today, you can also download the magazine now! As usual the magazine provides insights into the different activities of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, this time focussing on the life and work around the detector site in Louisiana.

LIGO Magazine issue5

05.06.2014 - Finesse 2.0 USB flash drive

Finesse USB flash drive

During the GWADW workshop in May 2014 in Japan we distributed USB flash drives to mark the release of Finesse 2.0. The USB drives contained the latest binaries along with a collection of documents (papers, notes and presentations) about Finesse that may be useful for those interested in optical simulations. Also included are Finesse input files for all the major gravitational wave detectors: Advanced LIGO, Advanced VIRGO, KAGRA, GEO600 and the Einstein Telescope, that you can experiment with. For those who did not attent the workshop we offer the USB drive image for download.

Finesse 2.0

21.05.2014 - Finesse 2.0 out now!

Almost one year after reaching version 1.0 we have now released a major upgrade of our interferometer simulation software Finesse. The upgrade included several long-requested feature, such as the possibility to model radiation pressure effects on suspended optics and to perform a full quantum noise analyses of interferometer output signals, including squeezed light and other quantum noise reduction techniques. The new program is coming with an updated manual and many new examples. See the Finesse download page for more information.

Finesse 2.0

19.03.2014 - LIGO Magazine, issue 4, out now!

The forth issue of the LIGO Magazine is out! With the magazine we try to provide insights into the different activities of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. If you want to know more about gravitational waves or how large international science communties operate, download the magazine now!

LIGO Magazine issue4

28.01.2014 - PyKat, from Matlab to Python

Numerical modelling for the design or commissioning of laser interferometer often involves a series of related tasks. At some point it becomes more efficient to write scripts to automate the sequence of tasks. This has also the advantage of documenting the full activity from preparing the models to the post-processing of the result. So far we have used a set of Matlab tools (Simtools) to automate modelling with Finesse. Now are moving to Python using PyKat!

The move away from Matlab to Python has been on our To-Do list for a while. A big part of automating Finesse simulations consists of parsing and writing text files, for which Matlab is not ideal. More importantly Matlab licences can be very expensive so that many people cannot use our Matlab tools. Python, especially the interactive IPython, combines easy string handling with an intuitive interactive shell and the possibility to write reasonably elegant and readable script files.

PyKat has been written by Daniel Brown and is available as an open source Python package. It has already been used for serious work, the examples included in the package provide the results presented in the document: `Comparing Finesse simulations, analytical solutions and OSCAR simulations of Fabry-Perot alignment signals' (available for download: http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5727). Try it out! Contributions and suggestions to the Python code are very welcome too!

Finesse 1.1

07.12.2013 - Modelling efforts

One of my favourite activities is to use numerical simulations to model real laser interferometers. The three links below show you some examples on what we have been working on during the last months.

Finesse Poster by Daniel Brown
Finesse 1.1

25.11.2013 - PhD positions available

Are you interested in advanced laser optics? Do you want to set up your own experiment, or would you like to contribute to one of the largest interferometer projects world-wide? Are you excited by porting numerical algorithms to GPUs and would you like to compare numerical models directly with experiments? We have PhD positions available now (start date October 2014, apply by 15. December 2013). For more information see our groups's PhD admission page and the project descriptions on my research page.

gwoptics

04.11.2013 - Finesse 1.1 has been released

A new version of Finesse is available for download. (You can also compile it directly from the source code.) The coupling of multiple frequency components has been completely rewritten. Now all laser fields and modulator sidebands are computed simultaneously (rather than sequentially as before). This change is a necessary preparation for the implementation of radiation pressure and quantum noise effect. It has the bonus feature of allowing the correct modelling of `sidebdands of sidebands' (such as created by two modulator components in series).

This is mostly a bug fixing release: We have changed a lot of the underlaying code, in preparation for the implementation of radiation pressure effects. This release marks the point in which all our tests produce the same results as before. For a full list of changes since version 1.0 see the file CHANGES.

Finesse 1.1

14.10.2013 - New paper

Today a new paper has been published on the arxiv.org server: Sensitivity of intra-cavity filtering schemes for detecting gravitational waves by Mengyao Wang et al.

Also, I realised that I never added a news item about our video paper! Already published in August, this is still worth a look: We demonstrate our recipe for creating pure, high-power ring-shaped laser beams:

Jove Video Paper, Screenshot
gwoptics

27.09.2013 - Finesse Syntax Highlighting

Recently some new files have been submitted by Finesse users Emil Schreiber and Will Vousden, so that Syntax Highlighting modes for Finesse are now available for Emacs, Vim, SublimeText (and TextMate, Textastic), Notepad++ and Ultraedit. You can download the necessary files from the GEO Simulation Group Wiki and of course Finesse from this page.

Finesse 1.0

25.09.2013 - The LIGO Magazine, issue 3

The third issue of the LIGO Magazine is out now! In this issue we bring you stories about the squeezing of light, a relatively recent concept from quantum optics, which might sound 'strange'. Hopefully the stories in the magazine will help to make squeezed light a little bit less strange. If you want to know more about gravitational waves and about what is going on in our community download the magazine now!

LIGO Magazine issue3

08.09.2013 - New plotting library for Processing

Our plotting library gwoptics for the Processing programming environment has been updated to version 0.5 and is now fully compatible with Processing 2.0. Give it a go, it also works on Android!

The library provides basic plotting functions for making 2D or 3D graphs with Processing. The examples included in the package show you how to plot data streams, data from lists or files or the output of equations.

Processing logo

10.08.2013 - Finding Black Holes with Lasers

In February 2013 I was invited by the Institute of Physics to give a lecture in the famous lecture theatre of the Royal Institution of Great Britain as part of their Physics in Perspective series. I was to expect about 400 students and teachers from schools across the country. The IOP has now published a recording of my presentation on youtube.

gwoptics

01.07.2013 - Testing, testing, testing ...

The main work behind the scenes of the release of Finesse 1.0 has been the testing, debugging and checking of the source code and of the simulation results. We are planning to collect this material and publish it as notes on the arxiv server. Today the first of these has arrived: Interferometer responses to gravitational waves: Comparing FINESSE simulations and analytical solutions by Charlotte Bond et al. It shows not only example Finesse results but also analytic solutions for simple interferometer responses - something we felt was lacking in the online literature.

fields at a mirror

06.06.2013 - Announcing Finesse 1.0

After more than 13 years of work and 25 releases we are proud to announce version 1.0 of the interferometer simulation tool Finesse!

Finesse is a fast and relatively easy to use software to simulate laser interferometers. It can be used for detector commissioning, interferometer design, or simply for learning more about laser optics. It is freely available for many platforms and fully open source. We also provide simple examples and an extensive manual.

Of course, we will continue to extend and improve Finesse. This version 1.0 completes the open source release of Finesse after a period of extensive testing and optimising the modeling of higher-order modes for beam shape changes and mirror surface distortions. The future of Finesse lies in the implementation of radiation pressure effects and quantum noise calculations; in fact, we have already started work on this.

Finesse 1.0

08.04.2013 - Recently published...

We have been quite busy recently and have submitted four new papers to the arxiv.org pre-print server. These papers provide a good glimpse into the work we do in our group, from investigating optical effects in detail to the design of future gravitational wave detectors. The pre-print server is open access, so have a look:

Polarisation diagram

D. Lodhia et al.: `Phase effects due to beam misalignment on diffraction gratings'
M. Wang et al.: `A realistic polarizing Sagnac [...] with DC readout for the Einstein Telescope'
L. Carbone et al.: `Generation of high-purity [...] Laguerre-Gauss beams at high laser power'
D. Brown et al.: `Invariance of waveguide grating mirrors to lateral displacement phase shifts'

20.03.2013 - The LIGO Magazine, issue 2

I am pleased to present the second issue of the LIGO Magazine! This issue of the magazine of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) features articles about black holes, and the astrophysics and data analysis that LIGO can do to find out more about these elusive objects. We also include a mix of conference reports, news items and stories from the detector sites. If you want to know more about gravitational waves and about what is going on in our community download the magazine now!

LIGO Magazine issue2

18.01.2013 - Gravitational Waves in Korea

Our Korean colleagues have organized their first gravitational wave conference Gravitational Waves: New Frontier. The talks cover a wide range of existing and planned projects. The slides are available for download, have a look!

gwoptics

09.01.2013 - Stargazing Live in Birmingham

Today and on Saturday this week, we are taking part in a BBC Stargazing Live event on the University Birmingham campus. We are showing our exhibition Looking for Black Holes with lasers with a new addition: the Mirror Suspension model with the full Advanced LIGO BOSEMs and control electronics.

It's been a lot of fun so far with a great audience, see the queue in front of the Physics building.

gwoptics

22.10.2012 - Some software updates

Thanks to Reinier Jonker at NIKHEF we can now also provide a Dutch version of Space Time Quest. We have also posted a new Processing sketch Reflection which demonstrated how electromagnetic waves behave at an optical surface.

At the moment all our interactive applets are based on Java applets, but because Java is disappearing from browsers more and more we plan to re-post all the interactive sketches as HTML5+Javascript, making use of Processing's Javascript mode.

Processing logo

13.09.2012 - Space Time Quest 1.2 released

A new version of Space Time Quest has been released. If you want to know how we design gravitational wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO or the Einstein Telescope, download the game and try for yourself!

Space Time Quest logo
The main changes are:
  • The Windows version now comes as a native program with a proper installer. So, no Java requirements anymore! This should make the program much more accessible!
  • The game is now available in Chinese, thanks to Mengyao Wang who performed the translation!
  • We fixed a bug that sometimes caused a magic increase in the budget. The high scores should be more accurate now.
  • But, yes, the infamous parrot is still around.

12.09.2012 - The new LIGO Magazine

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) today has published the first issue of a new magazine: The LIGO Magazine has been designed for the scientific collaboration itself as the main audience. However, it is published as a free download (pdf file) and I believe that this magazine is an interesting read also for people outside that community. It contains a lot of articles, stories and fascinating photos, have a look!

LIGO Magazine issue1

05.09.2012 - History and impact of Finesse

It is now 15 years since we had the idea to create the interferometer simulation Finesse. The software has been used for more than 10 years to design and improve optical systems and it is time to have a look at the impact it had. I have started collecting references to scientific reports and papers that reference Finesse and so far I have found 56 such documents. Have a look at that list and read about the History and Impact of Finesse! Please let me know if you know of other documents that should be listed here.

virtual Finesse package

03.06.2012 - Lies and statistics for gwoptics.org

During the last weeks I had a look at the gwoptics.org user statistics. Here is quick summary in case you are interested (or you can have a look at some plots): The data extracted from the webserver logfiles show a steady and fast increase in visitors to gwoptics.org since its launch, with currently an average of 140 unique visitors per day and more than 100,000 page impressions per month.

gwoptics statistics

Google currently counts more than 1500 incoming links to the gwoptics.org webpage. Within one year from its first release we have achieved almost 10,000 downloads of Space Time Quest and have close to 5000 downloads for Black Hole Pong. The online high-scores table for Space Time Quest shows over 5000 entries.

18.03.2012 - Open source release of Finesse

Our interferometer simulation Finesse has become open source! Not only can you download the source code, but we have also setup a professional Redmine project page for Finesse with a bug tracker, a Wiki, user forums and an easy way to view the code online. Have a look around and get involved! We are happy to help by answering questions in the forums and welcome any kind of contribution to the development of Finesse.

virtual Finesse package

In addition the main Finesse page has been improved, now hosting more examples and links to useful tools. Please let me know if you have an interesting Finesse example to share!

21.02.2012 - Photos from around the GW community

For a while I have been posting the odd photo from around the gravitational wave community on my tumblr blog: http://gwoptics.tumblr.com/. If you would like to share some interesting pictures, please let me know!

18.02.2012 - Upgrade your optical layouts

Do you sometimes need an illustration of an optical layout? Then ComponentLibrary might be something for you!

Example
	illustration created with the ComponentLibray

This free and open vector graphics library of optics components has been used to illustrate a great many notes, papers and PhD thesis. Now, it's your turn to upgrade your optical layouts! ComponentLibray has been developed by Alexander Franzen at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover.

17.11.2011 - New paper on our Processing activities

Our first paper on using Processing for science outreach has been submitted and is now available on the pre-print server: http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3899. The paper describes some of the background for the existence of this webpage, i.e. the idea to develop small computer applications to be used for educational purposes and to teach gravitational waves physics. Our Processing sketches are the main result of this activity with the two computer-games related to gravitational wave science: Black Hole Pong and Space Time Quest as the highlights.

11.11.2011 - Space Time Quest 1.1.0 released

A new version of Space Time Quest has been released today. We fixed some bugs and changed the way the final score is computed: instead of a detection range you now collect events, i.e. detections of supernovae, neutron stars and black holes. You can see the new score system in action in our online hall of fame.

As part of our effort to translate our material into other languages Space Time Quest is now also available in Spanish!

31.10.2011 - Translations of our gravitational wave Ebook

Our GW Ebook, a collection of short texts explaining the basics of gravitational wave detection, is now available in several languages! Do you ever wonder how to say `A Laser is a very special type of light source' in Spanish, German, Italian or Chinese? Well, here is your chance to find out! Also, if you have non-English speaking friends who are interested in science or astronomy, maybe you could introduce them to gravitational waves using these pages.

11.09.2011 - Squeezed light at GEO 600

Today, Nature Physics has published a paper about the implementation of squeezed light at the GEO 600 detector: `A gravitational wave observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit', http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NPHYS2083. For the first time the squeezed light technology has been used to increase the sensitivity of an astronomical observatory. The same technology is scheduled to be tested at the Advanced LIGO detectors.

06.09.2011 - Laguerre Gauss modes at the Glasgow prototype

Research groups from the University of Birmingham and the University of Glasgow are currently testing the feasibility of using ring-shaped laser beams for future gravitational wave detectors.

Youtube video of LG experiment at the Glasgow prototype

This video by Paul Fulda provides a behind-the-scenes view of an ongoing research programme. The preliminary results shown here have been presented by Borja Sorazu at the Amaldi conference in Cardiff 2011.

31.05.2011 - gwoptics.org in Physics World

The gwoptics.org pages have been reviewed by Physics World! If you happen to have the May 2011 issue laying around, check page 41, it makes a short but interesting read. If you cannot get the print version, apparently an online version of the review is available as well.

20.05.2011 - Images of the Einstein Telescope

Today Einstein gravitational wave Telescope conceptual design has been officially presented at an event in Pisa (Italy). The design study document itself more than 400 pages long and full with details details. However some images and the layout of the Einstein Telescope nicely visualise the dimension and complexity of the machine.

ET, artistic view

11.05.2011 - LIGO games

Our games Space Time Quest and Black Hole Pong are now listed amongst other LIGO related games on the LIGO outreach pages. Time to start working on Black Hole Battle, the new incarnation of Black Hole Pong.

10.03.2011 - Space Time Quest

Space Time Quest is here! You can now download the game and see all the high scores online. Build your own gravitational wave detector and see if you can beat the scores of the experts!

Youtube video for Space Time Quest

Space Time Quest is a manager-simulation type game. The player can use a limited budget to design a gravitational wave detector. The goal is to maximise the sensitivity by adjusting several subsystem parameters correctly. This game has been developed as part of our outreach programme in the Gravitational Wave Group in Birmingham; our aim was to create a fun game that is easy to play, looks good and gives some insight into the complexity of gravitational wave detectors.

At the moment the game does not come with much explanation; however there is a simple 'how to play' video to get you started.

02.03.2011 - Chirp Music

Do you know the sound of a gravitational wave? Listen to this! Inspiral Signal is an online applet that shows the orbit of two colliding black holes and plays the characteristic chirp of the space time ripples they cause.

22.02.2011 - Augmented Reality Pendulum

A computer plus webcam create an `augmented reality': a virtual pendulum which hangs from the marker and follows its motion, and the motion of your hands, as a real pendulum would do. More info, a video and the application itself are available on the Augmented Reality Pendulum page.

20.02.2011 - gwoptics on twitter

This site is now one year old and we have assembled quite a bit of material. Much of this site is dedicated to bring gravitational wave science to the people. Thus it is time to reach out: you can follow us on twitter at @gwoptics and @GW_Birmingham to get news and info about our activities! Please spread the word!

14.02.2011 - SimTools: Matlab functions for optical simulations

After a two years long break, I have now uploaded a new version of SimTools. Previous versions mainly provided functions to automatically parse and/or create text input files for other simulation programs, such as Finesse. Version 0.6 now included many more mathematical functions related to Gaussian beams and optical simulations.

07.01.2011 - You are Einstein

Another fun application to be used in science events and exhibitions has been uploaded. You are Einstein is a Processing application that gives you and your friends the Einstein look.

13.12.2010 - How does a gravitational waves detector work?

Do you know how a gravitational wave detector works? Have a look at our E-book on gravitational wave detection and find out! This is a collection of very short texts and some illustrations describing in simple terms what gravitational waves are and how we use lasers to detect them.

28.10.2010 - Black Hole Pong, a classic game revisited

A summer student project this year has led to another Processing program worth sharing: This is Black Hole Pong, a remake of the classic Pong with a new twist. It is of course an educational game, illustrating the ways of gravity - but you probably won't even notice that because it is also very fast and quite difficult.

01.09.2010 - The British Science Festival is coming to Birmingham

We will use a few new Processing sketches in the exhibition `Looking for Black Holes with Lasers' by the Gravitational Wave Group. More details about the software will be posted here after the exhibition.

24.06.2010 - Source code available for Processing applets

The full source code is now available for the Processing applets: Pendulum, Stimulated Emission, Michelson Interferometer 1, Gaussian Beam Viewer and Cavity Calculator 1.

16.04.2010 - Luxor (the GUI for Finesse) is back

The download page for Luxor, the graphical user interface for Finesse had disappeared some time ago and a new one needs to be setup. Jan Harms send me the files to host them here in the meantime and you can find Luxor now on this new download page. Give it a go.

19.03.2010 - Our Processing library `gwoptics' now available

From today on, our own library for the Processing language is available for download. The library gwoptics provides 2D and 3D plotting capabilities, which come in handy for optical simulations. The best example for its use is the Gaussian Beam Viewer. The library (as Processing) is open source and comes with basic documentation and examples.

25.02.2010 - New review article published

Today, a new review article Interferometer Techniques for Gravitational-Wave Detection has been published in Living Reviews in Relativity. The article is free to access, available as a pdf file or as an online webpage, and it covers a lot of background material for learning about interferometry and optics used for gravitational wave detectors.

17.02.2010 - Shoot the asteroid!

If you need a break from the optical simulations or are looking for first steps in programming for kids, you should have a look at our Scratch rocket game - and don't forget to shoot the asteroids!

21.01.2010 - Finesse version 0.99.8 released

A new version of Finesse is now available for download. The main changes to previous versions are the possibility to use mirror maps and an updated manual, see the file CHANGES for a detailed list of changes.

16.01.2010 - added new Processing sketch `Stimulated Emission'

The GW detectors page features a addition to the series of Processing sketches explaining parts of a gravitational wave detector: the Stimulated Emission sketch illustrates how a simple laser works through the process of stimulated emission.

13.01.2010 - www.gwoptics.org online for testing

The first draft version of the webpage is now online.