06/08/2026
Scientists have upgraded LIGO gravitational wave observatories to operate at the quantum noise limit β the absolute minimum noise floor permitted by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle β enabling gravitational wave detections sensitive enough to resolve structural features of individual black holes for the first time.
The A+ configuration installs frequency-dependent squeezed light from a 1-kilometre optical squeezing cavity into the main interferometer, reducing quantum phase noise by 6 decibels across all detection frequencies. At quantum-limited sensitivity, LIGO now detects spacetime strains of 4 Γ 10β»Β²β΄ per root hertz β equivalent to measuring a displacement smaller than one ten-thousandth of a proton diameter across a 4-kilometre baseline. This sensitivity level reveals the ringdown quasi-normal mode spectrum of post-merger black holes, each mode encoding mass, spin, and compliance with general relativity.
Three recent detections at A+ sensitivity have already identified black hole ringdown structures inconsistent with the simple Kerr black hole model assumed by standard general relativity β the first experimental hints that black holes may contain internal structure beyond the classical singularity description predicted by Einstein's field equations.
Source: LIGO Scientific Collaboration, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics, Nature Physics, 2025