MiniGRAIL Online

An anonymous reader writes "MiniGRAIL - the first spherical resonant mass gravitational wave detector in the world - is now taking data!!! The MiniGRAIL (Gravitational Radiation Antenna In Leiden) detector is located at the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory of the Leiden University (The Netherlands). The MiniGRAIL detector is a cryogenic 68 cm diameter spherical gravitational wave antenna made of CuAl(6%) alloy with a mass of 1400 Kg, a resonance frequency of 2.9 kHz and a bandwidth around 230 Hz, possibly higher. The quantum-limited strain sensitivity dL/L would be ~4x10-21. The antenna will operate at a temperature of 20 mK. An other similar detector is being built in São Paulo, which will strongly increase the chances of detection by looking at coincidences. The sources we are aiming at are for instance, non-axisymmetric instabilities in rotating single and binary neutron stars, small black-hole or neutron-star mergers etc."