Around VIRGO
At a meeting "Around VIRGO" at Pisa which looked at worldwide progress on gravitational wave detectors, left to right: Jean-Eudes Augustin of Lyon; Gerard Fontaine, head of astroparticle physics at the French CNRS; and Emilio Picasso of Pisa. Construction work has begun at Cascina, near Pisa, for VIRGO, a laser interferometer with two orthogonal 3 km arms. Multiple reflections in the arms will extend the optical length to 120 km. In its search for one of the most elusive effects in physics, gravitational wave detectors have to achieve new precision goals the VIRGO mirrors will have to attain a reflectivity of 99.999% with surfaces true to a hundredth of a micron. VIRGO is funded by the Italian INFN and the French CNRS.