Wide-band measurement of gravitational waves: the VIRGO project

Summary To detect gravitational waves (GW) in a frequency range between 10 Hz and few kHz a ground-based antenna was designed by the French-Italian collaboration VIRGO. The antenna is a 3 km long interferometer with special suspensions for the optical components, planned to reduce the seismic noise in order to reach the low-frequency region. Results on the seismic isolation devices are given together with some preliminary results on the use of permanent magnets on the VIRGO suspensions. Paper presented at the V Cosmic Physics National Conference, S. Miniato, November 27–30, 1990.