B. J. J. Slagmolen

dc readout experiment at the Caltech 40m prototype interferometer

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) operates a 40m prototype interferometer on the Caltech campus. The primary mission of the prototype is to serve as an experimental testbed for upgrades to the LIGO interferometers and for gaining experience with advanced interferometric techniques, including detuned resonant sideband extraction (i.e. signal recycling) and dc readout (optical homodyne detection). The former technique will be employed in Advanced LIGO, and the latter in both Enhanced and Advanced LIGO. Using dc readout for gravitational wave signal extraction has several technical advantages, including reduced laser and oscillator noise couplings as well as reduced shot noise, when compared to the traditional rf readout technique (optical heterodyne detection) currently in use in large-scale ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The Caltech 40m laboratory is currently prototyping a dc readout system for a fully suspended interferometric gravitational wave detector. The system includes an optical filter cavity at the interferometers output port, and the associated controls and optics to ensure that the filter cavity is optimally coupled to the interferometer. We present the results of measurements to characterize noise couplings in rf and dc readout using this system.

AIGO: a southern hemisphere detector for the worldwide array of ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors

This paper describes the proposed AIGO detector for the worldwide array of interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The first part of the paper summarizes the benefits that AIGO provides to the worldwide array of detectors. The second part gives a technical description of the detector, which will follow closely the Advanced LIGO design. Possible technical variations in the design are discussed.

Achieving resonance in the Advanced LIGO gravitational-wave interferometer

Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors are complex instruments comprised of a Michelson interferometer enhanced by multiple coupled cavities. Active feedback control is required to operate these instruments and keep the cavities locked on resonance. The optical response is highly nonlinear until a good operating point is reached. The linear operating range is between 0.01% and 1% of a fringe for each degree of freedom. The resonance lock has to be achieved in all five degrees of freedom simultaneously, making the acquisition difficult. Furthermore, the cavity linewidth seen by the laser is only _(~1) Hz, which is four orders of magnitude smaller than the linewidth of the free running laser. The arm length stabilization system is a new technique used for arm cavity locking in Advanced LIGO. Together with a modulation technique utilizing third harmonics to lock the central Michelson interferometer, the Advanced LIGO detector has been successfully locked and brought to an operating point where detecting gravitational-waves becomes feasible.

Gingin High Optical Power Test Facility

The Australian Consortium for Gravitational Wave Astronomy (ACIGA) in collaboration with LIGO is developing a high optical power research facility at the AIGO site, Gingin, Western Australia. Research at the facility will provide solutions to the problems that advanced gravitational wave detectors will encounter with extremely high optical power. The problems include thermal lensing and parametric instabilities. This article will present the status of the facility and the plan for the future experiments.

Feedback control of thermal lensing in a high optical power cavity

This paper reports automatic compensation of strong thermal lensing in a suspended 80 m optical cavity with sapphire test mass mirrors. Variation of the transmitted beam spot size is used to obtain an error signal to control the heating power applied to the cylindrical surface of an intracavity compensation plate. The negative thermal lens created in the compensation plate compensates the positive thermal lens in the sapphire test mass, which was caused by the absorption of the high intracavity optical power. The results show that feedback control is feasible to compensate the strong thermal lensing expected to occur in advanced laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Compensation allows the cavity resonance to be maintained at the fundamental mode, but the long thermal time constant for thermal lensing control in fused silica could cause difficulties with the control of parametric instabilities.

A robust single-beam optical trap for a gram-scale mechanical oscillator

Precise optical control of microscopic particles has been mastered over the past three decades, with atoms, molecules and nano-particles now routinely trapped and cooled with extraordinary precision, enabling rapid progress in the study of quantum phenomena. Achieving the same level of control over macroscopic objects is expected to bring further advances in precision measurement, quantum information processing and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. However, cavity optomechanical systems dominated by radiation pressure – so-called ‘optical springs’ – are inherently unstable due to the delayed dynamical response of the cavity. Here we demonstrate a fully stable, single-beam optical trap for a gram-scale mechanical oscillator. The interaction of radiation pressure with thermo-optic feedback generates damping that exceeds the mechanical loss by four orders of magnitude. The stability of the resultant spring is robust to changes in laser power and detuning, and allows purely passive self-locking of the cavity. Our results open up a new way of trapping and cooling macroscopic objects for optomechanical experiments.

Optomechanical design and construction of a vacuum-compatible optical parametric oscillator for generation of squeezed light

With the recent detection of gravitational waves, non-classical light sources are likely to become an essential element of future detectors engaged in gravitational wave astronomy and cosmology. Operating a squeezed light source under high vacuum has the advantages of reducing optical losses and phase noise compared to techniques where the squeezed light is introduced from outside the vacuum. This will ultimately provide enhanced sensitivity for modern interferometric gravitational wave detectors that will soon become limited by quantum noise across much of the detection bandwidth. Here we describe the optomechanical design choices and construction techniques of a near monolithic glass optical parametric oscillator that has been operated under a vacuum of 10(-6) mbar. The optical parametric oscillator described here has been shown to produce 8.6 dB of quadrature squeezed light in the audio frequency band down to 10 Hz. This performance has been maintained for periods of around an hour and the system has been under vacuum continuously for several months without a degradation of this performance.

TorPeDO: A Low Frequency Gravitational Force Sensor

Second generation gravitational wave detectors are likely to be limited by Newtonian Noise at low frequencies. A dual torsion pendulum sensor aimed at exploring low- frequency gravitational-force noise is being studied at the ANU. This sensor is designed to measure local gravitational forces to high precision and will be limited by Newtonian noise. We report on a controls prototype which has been constructed and suspended, along with initial characterisation and testing of the two torsion pendulums. Large weights at the end of each bar reposition the centres of mass to the same point in space external to both bars. Since both bars have a common suspension point, resonant frequency (≈33.4 mHz), and centre of mass, mechanical disturbances and other noise will affect both bars in the same manner, providing a large mechanical common mode rejection.

Towards the SQL: Status of the direct thermal-noise measurements at the ANU

We present the preliminary results for an experiment that aims to perform direct measurements of suspension thermal noise. The experiment is based on a niobium flexure membrane approximately 200 µm thickness that is operated as a stable inverted pendulum. A 0.25 g mirror suspended by this flexure membrane is used as the end mirror of a Fabry-Perot test cavity. This test cavity has a length of 12mm and a finesse of about 800. It is mounted at the lowest stage of a quadruple cascaded pendulum suspension, enclosed in a high-vacuum envelope. The length of test cavity is stabilized with 1Hz bandwidth to a Nd:YAG laser, which itself is stabilized with high bandwidth to the length of a suspended Zerodur reference cavity of finesse 6000.