Major steps have been taken to build the Einstein Telescope in the border region of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
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This was revealed at the 4th ministerial summit on the project.
The Flemish government is already reserving €200 million for the project. In addition, Belgium and the Netherlands support the steps being taken in Germany to definitively earmark funds for the construction of the Einstein Telescope.
Finally, it was announced at the summit that the first results of the drilling campaign give the preliminary conclusion that the subsoil in the border area of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany is sufficiently stable and offers opportunities to build the telescope.
That news caused great optimism among the responsible ministers from North Rhine-Westphalia, Belgium and the Netherlands at the Kerkrade conference on the underground telescope.
Following elections and government formation in the Netherlands and Belgium, a number of new ministers in the Netherlands and Belgium are responsible for the Einstein Telescope project.
From Wallonia it is Minister Pierre-Yves Jeholet, in Flanders it is Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele and from the Netherlands Minister Eppo Bruins, who also hosted.
Ahead of the summit, it was announced that the new Flemish cabinet is already reserving €200 million for the Einstein Telescope. This is good news.
Together with the financial reservation in the Netherlands and the extra boost given by Minister Bruins on Prinsjesdag, a total of more than a billion euros is available for the Einstein Telescope in both countries.
Germany is also taking steps for the Einstein Telescope. There, an application is under way to get the Einstein Telescope on Germany's priority list for large scientific infrastructure. This is a necessary condition for a financial contribution. Dutch and Belgian ministers have indicated their support for this proposal.
A key condition for building the Einstein Telescope is that the soil is suitable for it. To determine that, drilling to an average depth of 300 metres was carried out at 11 locations in the border region of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
Not all analyses have been completed yet, but the first preliminary conclusions look good. It was found that the subsurface consists of harder rock layers than initially assumed. This is favourable for building an underground research infrastructure.
The analysed data from the drillings have been independently verified by the geological service of TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). TNO concurs with the research team's conclusion based on these initial findings that there are no factors that would make the project unfeasible.
This drilling campaign and the data collected do not yet say anything about exactly where the 3 vertices for the underground telescope will be. Further geological research is needed for that.
In addition, seismic surveys must show that the area is sufficiently noise-free to allow the telescope to measure gravity waves optimally.
Furthermore, civil engineering studies must show how the construction of the underground tunnels and vertices is possible. In addition, environmental impact studies will help determine the most suitable location.
The Einstein Telescope will be of great value to science, the economy and society.
Studies show that every euro invested will pay for itself twice over, and thousands of additional jobs are expected to be created in the border area of the 3 countries. Both for scientists and professionals in the fields of construction, maintenance and hospitality.
The decision on where to build the Einstein Telescope will be made in 2026.
The border region of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium is in the race together, working on the best possible bid book. The Netherlands has €58 million for preparation and a reservation of €870 million for construction.
The Einstein Telescope will make it possible, for the first time, to explore the Universe through gravitational waves along its cosmic history up to the cosmological dark ages, shedding light on open questions of fundamental physics and cosmology.
It will probe the physics near black-hole horizons (from tests of general relativity to quantum gravity), help understanding the nature of dark matter (such as primordial BHs, axion clouds, dark matter accreting on compact objects), and the nature of dark energy and possible modifications of general relativity at cosmological scales.
Exploiting the ET sensitivity and frequency band, the entire population of stellar and intermediate mass black holes will be accessible over the entire history of the Universe, enabling to understand their origin (stellar versus primordial), evolution, and demography.
ET will observe the neutron-star inspiral phase and the onset of tidal effects with high signal-to-noise ratio providing an unprecedented insight into the interior structure of neutron stars and probing fundamental properties of matter in a completely unexplored regime (QCD at ultra-high densities and possible exotic states of matter).
The excellent sensitivity extending to kilohertz frequencies will also allow us to probe details of the merger and post-merger phase.
ET will operate together with a new innovative generation of electromagnetic observatories covering the band from radio to gamma rays (such as the Square Kilometer Array, the Vera Rubin Observatory, E-ELT, Athena, CTA). ■