Observation of Parametric Instability in Advanced LIGO
Matthew Evans, Slawek Gras, Peter Fritschel, John Miller, Lisa Barsotti, Denis Martynov, Aidan Brooks, Dennis Coyne, Rich Abbott, Rana Adhikari, Koji Arai, Rolf Bork, Bill Kells, Jameson Rollins, Nicolas Smith-Lefebvre, Gabriele Vajente, Hiroaki Yamamoto, Ryan Derosa, Anamaria Effler, Keiko Kokeyama, Joseph Betzweiser, Valera Frolov, Adam Mullavey, Sheila Dwyer, Kiwamu Izumi, Keita Kawabe, Daniel Sigg, Stefan Ballmer, Thomas J. Massinger, Alexa Staley, Chris Mueller, Hartmut Grote, Robert Ward, Eleanor King, Keith Thorne, Michael Thomas, Carl Adams, Stuart Aston, Janeen Romie, Arnaud Pele, Matthew Heinze, David Blair, Li Ju, Chunnong Zhao
Abstract
Parametric instabilities have long been studied as a potentially limiting effect in high-power interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Until now, however, these instabilities have never been observed in a kilometer-scale interferometer. In this work we describe the first observation of parametric instability in an Advanced LIGO detector, and the means by which it has been removed as a barrier to progress.