Second generation gravitational wave (GW) detectors opened era of gravitational wave astronomy with the fist GW detection in 2015 and are now approaching their design sensitivity. During the 3 past observations runs, they detected 90 GW signals produced by the merging of binary compact objects, providing a wealth of scientific results ranging from the general relativity, to astrophysics and cosmology.
 
At present all the detectors of the network (Advanced Virgo in Europe, the two Advanced LIGO in US and KAGRA in Japan) are undergoing an upgrade phase with the goal to increase the sensitivity. This will allow investigating fundamental open questions as the nature of gravitation and dark energy, the properties of nuclear matter and the formation of neutron star and black-hole through the cosmic history.
 
A fourth observation run (O4) is expected to start at the end of 2022 and a fifth one (O5) will follow after an addition upgrade period.
 
The Virgo group at APC is contributing to the experimental development of the upgraded detector Advanced Virgo+ as well as to the data analysis of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network.
 
Among the planned upgrades, there is the implementation of the so-called frequency dependent squeezing, a cutting-edge quantum technology which will push the sensitivity limits of the detector by reducing the quantum noise in the whole frequency bandwidth. The student will contribute to the implementation of this new technology and related data-analysis, partly working the Virgo site. 
 
The internship can be followed by a PhD thesis.