Welcome to the ERC Sagnac Speed-Meter Project

This website is meant to provide information on the European Research Council-funded Sagnac Speed-Meter experiment which is currently being set-up at the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow.

In this project we aim to answer questions like:

  • Is it possible to measure more accurately than the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?
  • How do we build a kilometre scale Sagnac speed-meter as gravitational wave detector, such as the Einstein Telescope?
  • Will the Sagnac speed-meter supersede the Michelson interferometer as state-of-the-art instrument for ultra-high sensitivity length measurements?

If our proof-of-concept experiment works and we do not find any showstoppers associated to the Sagnac speed-meter concept, then the speed-meter concept can be used to significantly increase the sensitivity of future gravitational wave detectors such as the Einstein Telescope or future upgrades to LIGO and therefore help to answer questions like:

  • What happens when two black holes collide?
  • Where does the Universe come from and where will it go?
  • What are the fundamentals of gravity and dark matter?

This project with the title "Interferometry beyond the Standard Quantum Limit using a Velocity Sensitive Sagnac Interferometer" (ERC-2012-StG: 307245) was funded with 1.4 million Euros by the ERC via the Starting Grant scheme. We started the project in September 2012 and it will run until 2017. The work is carried out in the context of the GEO600 Collaboration, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Einstein Telescope Collaboration.

For more information, please contact Stefan Hild.