ASPERA Technology Forum on Mirrors and Lasers in Astroparticle Physics Infrastructures

ASPERA Technology Forums provide discussion platforms for scientists facing ambitious technological challenges and for companies who are interested in the markets arising from the new science projects. The goal is to strengthen the cooperation among stakeholders from industry, astroparticle physics projects and funding agencies, as well as to discuss and conclude on a new collaborative approach for technological developments.

The next generation detectors included in the updated European Astroparticle Physics Roadmap have received outstanding attention in the scientific community. The total investment for those projects is estimated around 1.5 Billion Euros over the next decade and the scientific goals require unprecedented R&D efforts. Technological challenges on optical components like mirrors, lenses, windows and on lasers are of paramount importance in the research fields of gravitational waves (GW) and very high-energy gamma ray observatories (VHEGR).

Currently the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is under detailed design and prototyping. This future observatory requires mirror segments of a total area of about 9000m2 for three different types of telescopes. The Einstein Telescope (ET) will be the final European step in the field of gravitational wave research, but already in the next years a major upgrading process of the current gravitational wave detectors (Advanced Virgo and GEO HF in Europe, Advanced LIGO in USA, probably Advanced LIGO-South in Australia or India and LCGT in Japan) will pose new technological challenges.

This Technology Forum shapes a strong technical and scientific programme concentrating on the following topics:

• Mirrors and auxiliary optics
  Coating, polishing, sandwich structures, flatness, deformation, aging, optical metrology, optical sensors, optical and thermo-optical properties
• Lasers
  Fibre lasers, CO2 lasers, Solid state lasers, Laser technology, Simulation codes

• Thomas Berghöfer (PT-DESY & ASPERA)
• Marta Budroni (EGO)
• Rodolfo Canestrari (INAF - OAB)
• Hélène Demonfaucon(FOM-Nikhef & ASPERA)
• Michele Doro (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
• Federico Ferrini (co-chair, EGO)
• Andreas Förster (MPIK-Heidelberg)
• Sandra Hesping (ASPERA)
• Katharina Henjes-Kunst (ASPERA)
• Harald Lueck (AEI-Hannover)
• Séverine Perus (EGO)
• Michele Punturo (co-chair, INFN-Perugia & EGO)
• Bijan Saghai (co-chair, CEA-Saclay & ASPERA)

This event is supported by:

Download the poster of the event.

Click here to see a photo gallery of the event.