The SteemSTEM / Utopian.io MeetUp is almost here! Slightly more than one week is left on the calendar and we’ll finally meet each other in the beautiful city of Florence. Before (or actually during) this exciting event we will publish some exclusive interviews with real researchers and engineers working at the Virgo Experiment.
Even if you did not get the chance to attend the meetup this time, we would love to ask questions on your behalf!
Who are we going to interview?
The two scientists who agreed to be contacted are Giovanni Losurdo and Alessio Rocchi.
Giovanni Losurdo was the project leader of the detector upgrade phase which lasted about 5 years (2011-2016).
Since 2005 he coordinated all R&D within the Virgo Collaboration, the preparation of the Advanced Virgo Conceptual Design and of the Project Execution Plan and Cost Plan, the activity of the Advanced Virgo subsystem manager and the preparation of the Advanced Virgo Technical Design.
Since 2003 he dealt with the commissioning of the full Virgo detector and has been coordinator of the MSC (Mirror Suspension Control) Group.
In the 1992‐2000, he gave a major contribution to the design, realization and test of the Superattenuator, the unique vibration isolation system for the Virgo mirrors.
Alessio Rocchi is an experimental physicist in the field of gravitational waves since 1997. At the beginning of his career, he worked on cryogenic resonant bar detectors (NAUTILUS at INFN Frascati National Laboratories, EXPLORER at CERN, and MINIGRAIL at Leiden University) at the development of quantum limited superconducting electronics.
In 2007, he joined Virgo and became the responsible for the installation of the adaptive optic system (named TCS) for the correction of the aberrations in the interferometer's mirrors. Lately, in the framework of the Advanced Virgo Project, he has been in charge of the design and construction of the upgraded TCS.
In February 2017, he was appointed Commissioning Coordinator, with the mandate to lead the experimental activities on site in view of the joint science runs with LIGO.
What can you ask?
Everything concerning Virgo, the collaboration with LIGO, gravitational waves, black holes, noise detection, data analysis, etc. Anything you may want to. Physicists are generally very happy to answer every single question!
In practice, it is enough to write down in the comment section your questions. We will ask them next week to the people behind one of the most exciting experiments on Earth!
To conclude
As the meetup is approaching, this may be one of the last chances to support us by contributing to the expenses generated by moving 30 people from all over the world to Italy.
Every upvote counts, and we would appreciate yours.