The Brazilian gravitational wave detector Mario Schenberg: progress and plans

The Schenberg gravitational wave detector is almost completed for operation at its site in the Physics Institute of the University of Sao Paulo, under the full support of FAPESP (the Sao Paulo State Foundation for Research Support). We have been working on the development of a transducer system, which will be installed after the arrival of all the microwave components and the completion of the transducer mechanical parts. The initial plan is to operate a CuAl6% two-mode parametric transducer in a first operational run at 4.2 K with nine transducers and an initial target sensitivity of h ~ 2 × 10−21 Hz−1/2 in a 50 Hz bandwidth around 3.2 kHz. Here we present details of this plan and some recent results of the development of this project.