Minicourse on Gravitational Wave Detectors and Sources

In this minicourse of two lectures, the current plans for the next generation of terrestrial gravitational wave detectors will be outlined, with emphasis on the Einstein Telescope (ET).

Its reference configuration is a triangular shape consisting of three nested detectors with 10 km arms, where in each arm there is a `xylophone’ configuration made of an interferometer tuned toward high frequencies, and an interferometer tuned toward low frequencies and working at cryogenic temperature. The scientific perspectives under possible variations of this reference design will be presented, as well as a science case comparison between a single triangular geometry observatory and a network of two L-shaped detectors.

Then an outlook of possible sources of gravitational waves for third generation detections will be given, which include also stochastic and continuous ones, thus enlarging the goal detections from the compact binary coalescence which have been the only sources for second generation detectors so far.