Italy is a candidate to host the Einstein telescope in Sardinia

“Attention, dedication and will”. These are the words with which the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announces the Italian candidacy to host the Einstein telescope in Sardinia. The assignment of the headquarters will take place in 2025. However, the fiercest rivals, the Dutch, have already promised 870 million, part of those loans – between 1 and 2 billion – which will be used to build the scientific infrastructure dedicated to the search for gravitational waves in the universe. And Italy on this point does not yet have many concrete numbers to offer, in addition to the 80 million for the feasibility study of the project and the funds promised by the Region of Sardinia (350 million).
“The investment will be there” promises the university and research minister Anna Maria Bernini at the headquarters of the National Institute of Astrophysics, where the press conference is held to announce the Italian candidacy. “We believe in this company which is important for the present, but above all for the future”. Our country plans for the construction of the Einstein telescope 1.7 billionto be distributed over the 9 years needed to implement the tool a Sos Enattos, in the village of Lulasouth of Olbia.

For Bernini, Holland’s financial advantage over Italy exists only on paper.” Holland has published a letter of commitment to allocate the necessary funds to the Einstein telescope, but has not yet written anything in the budget. Their promise is valid as much as ours”.

In Lula, meanwhile, they already believe a lot in the telescope. “The construction of the telescope will give work to 4,000 people a year for 9 yearsin a complex area from the point of view of redevelopment of the territory” he promises Marina Elvira Calderone, Minister of Labour. “With this project, Italy shows that it wants to look upwards” adds Meloni again. “We want to show that Italy knows how to think big”.

Sos Enattos, with its low seismic and little inhabited area, the stable subsoil made of granite and free from groundwater – important characteristics for a gravitational wave detector telescope – has all the credentials to be chosen (even more than Holland). “The good Lord helped us, we have the perfect place” is Meloni’s synthesis. “We have the opportunity to bring Italian and European science back to the center of the world scene. We want to demonstrate that Italy is capable of thinking big. And to dream without sleeping”. The prime minister promises: “We will do our best”.

On the other hand, Italy has already built a gravitational wave detector antenna. Is called Virgo and is located at Farmhouse, in the province of Pisa. “In 2015, the first observation of a gravitational wave took place here, together with another American instrument” recalls Antonio Zoccoli, president of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics.
The president of the technical-scientific committee that supports the Italian candidacy is Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi: “Gravitational waves formed billions of years ago. Then, like waves in a pond, they started traveling to us. At first we thought they would only allow us to see collisions between neutron stars, but thanks to them we have discovered many black holes. It is difficult to predict what we will discover with the Einstein Telescope. If we already knew today, we would not need to do research”.