The VIRGO project in Firenze

The purpose of the Virgo interferometer is to detect arrival of gravitational waves on Earth from astronomical sources. This is achieved by measuring the motion of "free" masses caused by the travelling deformation of space-time. The foreseen displacement is so tiny on human scale that it should be compared to measuring hair diameter over the distance from earth to the nearest star.

The apparatus is based on distance measurements performed with interfering light rays travelling in two vacuum enclosures 3 km long.It will be situated in Cascina, near Pisa, in Italy.

Monday 6th May 1996 the works in Cascina started officially.

Collaborating Institutes in Virgo

Virgo is a French-Italian scientific collaboration between laboratories of CNRS (France) and INFN (Italy).

French Institutions	Italian Institutions
LAPP Annecy	INFN Firenze
IPN Lyon	LNF Frascati
LAL Orsay	INFN Napoli
ESPCI Paris	INFN Perugia
	INFN Pisa
	INFN Roma 1

(The Virgo logos are links to the local virgo pages)

Local Virgo staff

In association with the INFN Section of Firenze there is the University of Urbino Physics Institute.

Calamai Giovanni	vanni@arcetri.astro.it	(Fi)
Cecchini Roberto	roberto.cecchini@fi.infn.it	(Fi)
Di Franco Salvatore	difranco@arcetri.astro.it	(Fi)
Dominici Pietro	dominici@fis.uniurb.it	(Ub)
Losurdo Giovanni	giovanni.losurdo@fi.infn.it	(Fi)
Martellini Aldemiro	martel@fis.uniurb.it	(Ub)
Mazzoni Massimo	mazzoni@arcetri.astro.it	(Fi)
Stanga Ruggero	stanga@arcetri.astro.it	(Fi)
Vetrano Flavio	vetrano@fis.uniurb.it	(Ub)

URL: http://www.fi.infn.it/sezione/esperimenti/virgo
Last modified: 8 May 2000

Roberto Cecchini