Here is the list of the experiments I am working on:
In the past I have worked also on:
In the following I give a short description of these experiments. More details can be found at the experiment web sites.
RareNoise is a research focusing on nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. I am the Principal Investigator.
AURIGA and VIRGO are gravitational wave (gw) detectors: AURIGA follows an old concept for a gw detector and it is now outdated by VIRGO.
DUAL R&D was a research and development study to assess the feasibility of a novel kind of gravitational wave detector.
RareNoise is a research program devoted to the study of non-equilibrium fluctuations in mechanical oscillators; the study is performed via two mutually reinforcing approaches: numerical and analytical analysis and laboratory experiments. The research focuses on the effect of temperature gradients in Gravitational Wave detectors. Situations similar to those that drive out of equilibrium mechanical subsystems of the detectors are reproduced experimentally on smaller scale devices that can be realized and characterized more easily. The effects of temperature gradients on the spontaneous vibration fluctuations of low-loss mechanical oscillators are investigated. The research started in 2008 when I was awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The project is also supported by INFN. Here is a brief summary of the achievements of the ERC funded project
VIRGO is a gravitational wave detector. It is a Michelson laser interferometer made of two orthogonal 3km long arms. Virgo is located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) site, in Cascina (Pisa, Italy). Along with the companion US experiments, Virgo represents the state of the art of the ground based gravitational wave detectors for astrophysical gw sources emitting in the 10Hz-6kHz. frequencies. After a few runs of data taking, Virgo is now being upgraded to Advanced Virgo, with improved sensitivity and detection capabilities.
AURIGA is a gravitational wave detector. It consists of a 2.2ton, 3m long bar, made of a low-loss aluminum alloy and cooled to liquid helium temperature T=4.6K. Its first longitudinal mode resonates at f0 about 900Hz and is sensitive to gravitational waves. The bar motion aound tehe resonance is detected by a resonant capacitive transducer followed by a double stage dc-SQUID amplifier; the displacement sensitivity is about 5e-20m/sqrt(Hz) over a approx 100 Hz bandwidth around f0, largely limited by thermal noise. AURIGA represents the state-of-the-art of the resonant gravitational wave detectors and it is in continuos data taking since 2004, with a hope to detect galactic gw events. It has put an upper limit to the gw flux from the 27 Dec 2004 Giant Flare of SGR1806-20; in collaboration with other gw resonant detectors, having not detected any gw signal, it has put upper limits on the rate of millisecond gw bursts arriving on the Earth during the observation time.
DUAL is a novel king of gravitational wave detector, which would be both compact as the bar detectors and wideband as the interferometric detectors. I was one of the main proponents of this new gw detector concept. To assess the feability of this idea, an R&D program was carried out (2006-2009). The conclusions was that present technical limits of the two proposed readout (capacitive with SQUID amplifiers and interferometric) prevent reaching the sensitivity and bandwidth useful for search of astrophysical gw sources. Hence the idea of pursuing a Dual detector was abandoned.