The 14 million euro European tender for the technical and economic feasibility study of the Einstein Telescope has been published.
Italy is a candidate to host the future gravitational wave detector in Sardinia, in the disused Sos Enattos mine in Lula . The government has already allocated 50 million from the Pnrr. Competing with Sos Enattos is the site in Limburg, the Netherlands .
The tender was announced by the Executive Board of INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) which coordinates the ETIC (Einstein Telescope Infrastructure Consortium) project.
"The study will provide all the territorial and constructive elements to support Sardinia's candidacy to host the Einstein Telescope," said Maria Marsella , responsible for the "WP6 Sustainable Design" of the ETIC project.
«A multidisciplinary working group will follow the development of the engineering solutions - he added - to guarantee compatibility with the requirements defined by the scientific community and to favor the application of sustainable strategies for the environment and the territory. The results will make it possible to optimize the localization, on the surface and underground, of the ET infrastructures in the Sos Enattos area ».
The sole responsible for the call for tenders is Gaetano Schillaci : "The study object of the tender - he explains - has a high level of complexity and uniqueness, it will require the commitment of a company with high skills".
Soundings and functional investigations will be carried out on the Sardinian site and a preliminary study of the environmental impact is also planned , both for the works on the surface and for the underground ones.
The deadline for submitting bids is 29 June 2023 at 12 noon.
The Italian candidacy of the Sos Enattos site to host the Einstein Telescope will also be at the center of the event "Einstein Telescope: the great European research infrastructure" scheduled for 9 May in Cagliari. Among the planned interventions, that of the Minister for University and Research Anna Maria Bernini , in remote connection, that of the President of the Region Christian Solinas and a masterful reading on gravitational waves by the Nobel Prize for Physics Giorgio Parisi, chosen as guide of the scientific committee in support of the candidacy of Sos Enattos .
(Unioneonline/L)
