MG14 - Talk detail

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The research activity in gravitational wave (GW) detection in Rome started in 1970, promoted by Guido Pizzella and Edoardo Amaldi, whose name is related to the biennial conference, which is one of the most important international gathering in the field. Amaldi had been cultivating a longstanding interest in experiments on gravitation, which can be dated back to the end of the 1950s when, following an idea suggested by Bruno Touschek, he and his colleague Mario Ageno began in Rome a few (o some) experiments for testing the dependence of the beta decay constant on the centrifugal force. Connected to the major international physicists, Amaldi was attentively following the renewed interest of the scientific community in the experimental tests of General Relativity, in particular Robert Dicke’s program of precision tests on the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass and Joseph Weber’s first attempts for detecting GWs. Besides his quest for fundamental physics, the new astronomical discoveries, such as quasars (1963) and pulsars (1967), who were reassigning to Einstein’s theory of gravitation a fundamental role in interpreting physical phenomena and giving birth to relativistic astrophysics, triggered his interest in gravitational radiation. Together with multiwave astronomy, cosmic rays, particles from the solar wind, and neutrinos, gravitational-wave astronomy might open another window on the universe. And indeed, during the 1960s Amaldi promoted the opening up of new lines of research in Rome, like space science, plasma physics and astrophysics, calling back at the Institute of Physics scientists as Livio Gratton, for whom the first chair of astrophysics in Rome was established in 1962; encouraging the training abroad of young researchers as Guido Pizzella; stimulating synergies among different expertises and actively contributing to the creation of dedicated laboratories as the Ionized Gas Laboratory in Frascati. A privileged role in those early years had the young student Remo Ruffini. In 1967 Amaldi strongly supported his application for an ESRO fellowship, which would allow him spending two years in USA, training on gravitation with Robert Dicke and John Wheeler at Princeton University, and with Joseph Weber at Maryland University. Amaldi’s explicit aim was setting up “an experimental group working in this field at the return of Ruffini”. Through Amaldi’s letters and archival documents, a fragmented path can be traced, showing how Amaldi’s contacts with relativists was progressively growing. Starting from the middle of the 1960s, a clear will appears of beginning an experimental activity for detecting gravitational radiation.

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