We aren't currently maintaining Metaforecast. We hope to do so again in the future.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has been responsible for some tremendously exciting science this decade.
However, per astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, LIGO misses ~100,000 black hole mergers every year. Whoa!
We need backup, apparently!
Well, help may soon be on the way, in the form of another LIGO detector under construction in India. LIGO-India "is a planned advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of the worldwide network." Possible benefits include:
Adding a new detector to the existing network will increase the expected event rates, and will boost the detection confidence of new sources (by increasing the sensitivity, sky coverage and duty cycle of the network). But the dramatic improvement from LIGO-India would come in the ability of localizing GW sources in the sky. Sky-location of the GW sources is computed by combining data from geographically separated detectors ('aperture synthesis'). Adding a new detector in India, geographically well separated from the existing LIGO-Virgo detector array, will dramatically improve the source-localization accuracies (5 to 10 times), thus enabling us to use GW observations as an excellent astronomical tool.
LIGO-India is set to be built by 2025. That's 2 years before our question's deadline. But delays on massive science projects happen with some frequency. (Ahem, Elon Musk. Ahem, James Webb Telescope.)
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Stars | ★★★☆☆ |
| Platform | Metaculus |
| Number of forecasts | 213 |
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has been responsible for some tremendously exciting science this decade.