K. Dahl

The AEI 10 m prototype interferometer

A 10 m prototype interferometer facility is currently being set up at the AEI in Hannover, Germany. The prototype interferometer will be housed inside a 100 m 3 ultra-high vacuum envelope. Seismically isolated optical tables inside the vacuum system will be interferometrically interconnected via a suspension platform interferometer. Advanced isolation techniques will be used, such as inverted pendulums and geometrical anti-spring filters in combination with multiple-cascaded pendulum suspensions, containing an all-silica monolithic last stage. The light source is a 35 W Nd:YAG laser, geometrically filtered by passing it through a photonic crystal fibre and a rigid pre-modecleaner cavity. Laser frequency stabilisation will be achieved with the aid of a high finesse suspended reference cavity in conjunction with a molecular iodine reference. Coating thermal noise will be reduced by the use of Khalili cavities as compound end mirrors. Data acquisition and control of the experiments is based on the AdvLIGO digital control and data system. The aim of the project is to test advanced techniques for GEO 600 as well as to conduct experiments in macroscopic quantum mechanics. Reaching standard quantum-limit sensitivity for an interferometer with 100 g mirrors and subsequently breaching this limit, features most prominently among these experiments. In this paper we present the layout and current status of the AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer project.

Multicolor cavity metrology

Long-baseline laser interferometers used for gravitational-wave detection have proven to be very complicated to control. In order to have sufficient sensitivity to astrophysical gravitational waves, a set of multiple coupled optical cavities comprising the interferometer must be brought into resonance with the laser field. A set of multi-input, multi-output servos then lock these cavities into place via feedback control. This procedure, known as lock acquisition, has proven to be a vexing problem and has reduced greatly the reliability and duty factor of the past generation of laser interferometers. In this article, we describe a technique for bringing the interferometer from an uncontrolled state into resonance by using harmonically related external fields to provide a deterministic hierarchical control. This technique reduces the effect of the external seismic disturbances by 4 orders of magnitude and promises to greatly enhance the stability and reliability of the current generation of gravitational-wave detectors. The possibility for using multicolor techniques to overcome current quantum and thermal noise limits is also discussed.

Suspension platform interferometer for the AEI 10 m prototype: concept, design and optical layout

At present a 10 m prototype interferometer facility is being set up at the AEI Hannover. One unique feature of the prototype will be the suspension platform interferometer (SPI). The purpose of the SPI is to monitor and stabilize the relative motion between three seismically isolated optical tables. The in-vacuum tables are suspended in an L-shaped configuration with an arm length of 11.65 m. The design goal of the SPI is to stabilize longitudinal differential displacements to a level of 100 pm between 10 mHz and 100 Hz and relative angular noise of 10 nrad in the same frequency band. This paper covers the optical layout, signal processing and design aspects of the SPI, e.g. cross-coupling between the different degrees of freedom and fibre pointing noise are investigated. A simulation is presented which shows that with the chosen optical design of the SPI all degrees of table motion can be sensed in a fully decoupled way.

Design of the 10 m AEI prototype facility for interferometry studies

The AEI 10 m prototype interferometer facility is currently being constructed at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany. It aims to perform experiments for future gravitational wave detectors using advanced techniques. Seismically isolated benches are planned to be interferometrically interconnected and stabilized, forming a low-noise testbed inside a 100 m^3 ultra-high vacuum system. A well-stabilized high power laser will perform differential position readout of 100 g test masses in a 10 m suspended arm-cavity enhanced Michelson interferometer at the crossover of measurement (shot) noise and backaction (quantum radiation pressure) noise, the so-called Standard Quantum Limit (SQL). Such a sensitivity enables experiments in the highly topical field of macroscopic quantum mechanics. In this article we introduce the experimental facility and describe the methods employed, technical details of subsystems will be covered in future papers.

The 10m AEI prototype facility A brief overview

The AEI 10 m prototype interferometer facility is currently being constructed at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany. It aims to perform experiments for future gravitational wave detectors using advanced techniques. Seismically isolated benches are planned to be interferometrically interconnected and stabilized, forming a low-noise testbed inside a 100 m^3 ultra-high vacuum system. A well-stabilized high power laser will perform differential position readout of 100 g test masses in a 10 m suspended arm-cavity enhanced Michelson interferometer at the crossover of measurement (shot) noise and backaction (quantum radiation pressure) noise, the so-called Standard Quantum Limit (SQL). Such a sensitivity enables experiments in the highly topical field of macroscopic quantum mechanics. In this article we introduce the experimental facility and describe the methods employed, technical details of subsystems will be covered in future papers.

Status of the AEI 10?m prototype

The AEI 10 m prototype will be an ultra-low displacement noise facility consisting of an L-shaped ultra-high vacuum system with about 10 m long arms, excellent seismic isolation, a well-stabilized high power laser and other advanced interferometry techniques. In the first round of experiments an interferometer to measure at the standard quantum limit of classical interferometry will be set up. This paper describes the status of the AEI 10 m prototype and its individual sub-systems as of April 2012.

Towards a Suspension Platform Interferometer for the AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer

Currently, the AEI 10 m Prototype is being set up at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany. The Suspension Platform Interferometer (SPI) will be an additional interferometer set up inside the vacuum envelope of the AEI 10 m Prototype. It will interferometrically link the three suspended in-vacuum tables. The inter-table distance will be 11.65 m. The SPI will measure and stabilise the relative motions between these tables for all degrees of freedom, except roll around the optical axis. In this way, all tables can be regarded as one large platform. The design goal is 100 pm/ differential distance stability between 10mHz and 100Hz.

Designs of the frequency reference cavity for the AEI 10 m Prototype interferometer

The AEI 10 m Prototype is in its designing phase and will provide a test-bed for very sensitive interferometric experiments, such as the sub-SQL interferometer. It will test new techniques to reach – and even surpass – the Standard Quantum Limit. The experience and knowledge that can be gained from this experiment can be applied to large-scale interferometric gravitational detectors to improve the detector sensitivities. In order for the sub-SQL interferometer to achieve the required sensitivity all limiting noise sources need to be suppressed sufficiently. Noise sources can include seismic noise, thermal noise, and laser noise; laser frequency noise will be the main focus of this document. The laser frequency noise will be suppressed to a level of 10−4 Hz/ at 20 Hz dropping to below 10−6 Hz/ at 1kHz. The proposed design to suppress the laser frequency noise with a ring cavity is described in this paper.

The AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer frequency control using the reference cavity and its angular control

The main purpose of the AEI 10 m Prototype is to reach and eventually surpass the Standard Quantum Limit at frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 1 kHz with a 10 m arm-length Michelson interferometer named the sub-SQL interferometer. The frequency control system uses a 20 m optical path length triangular suspended cavity named the reference cavity, with the goal of suppressing frequency noise of the input laser to a level of ~ 10-4 Hz/ at 20 Hz rolling off to below 6 × 10-6 Hz/ above 1 kHz. It is expected that tight angular control of the reference cavitys mirrors is necessary to reach this stringent requirement.

Contrary behavior of absorption and dispersion

A degenerate two-level system was investigated with circularly polarized probe and coupling lasers. An intensity dependent switch of an absorption peak to a dip was measured. The corresponding dispersion did not change.