![]() Instead of falling randomly, each raindrop is less likely to hit a spot that’s already wet than a dry patch. Squeezing light works by shining a laser through a special crystal, which adjusts the rate of the photons’ flow so they’re spaced out more evenly. In upgraded detectors, a principle of quantum physics called “squeezed light” is helping researchers paint a more precise image. Now physicists can even out those metaphorical raindrops. The droplet nature of rain, like the photon nature of light, leads to “graininess.” Some spots might stay dry longer, while others get soaked. ![]() Drizzling drops hit the pavement independent of one another. Imagine these photons as raindrops, and the time it takes for us to measure the gravitational wave as a sidewalk. Ordinarily, photons exit the lasers at random intervals, so the signals are fuzzy. Passing waves wiggle the mirrors less than the width of an atom, and scientists measure the ripples based on when photons in the laser light bounce off them and come back. The U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its European counterpart, Virgo, fire lasers down two mile-plus-long arms with mirrors at their ends. The devices that nab waves all rely on the same mechanism. For that, they need the most sensitive gravitational-wave detectors ever. Doing so could help them accurately measure waves cast off by colliding neutron stars, impacts that might be the source of many Earthly elements, including gold. But now physicists want to see even farther. They spied this binary black-hole collision by capturing gravitational waves-ripples in spacetime created when massive objects interact-for the first time. In 2015, scientists caught evidence of a cosmic throwdown that took place 1.3 billion light-years away.
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