K. Venkateswara

Seismic isolation of Advanced LIGO: Review of strategy, instrumentation and performance

The new generation of gravitational waves detectors require unprecedented levels of isolation from seismic noise. This article reviews the seismic isolation strategy and instrumentation developed for the Advanced LIGO observatories. It summarizes over a decade of research on active inertial isolation and shows the performance recently achieved at the Advanced LIGO observatories. The paper emphasizes the scientific and technical challenges of this endeavor and how they have been addressed. An overview of the isolation strategy is given. It combines multiple layers of passive and active inertial isolation to provide suitable rejection of seismic noise at all frequencies. A detailed presentation of the three active platforms that have been developed is given. They are the hydraulic pre-isolator, the single-stage internal isolator and the two-stage internal isolator. The architecture, instrumentation, control scheme and isolation results are presented for each of the three systems. Results show that the seismic isolation sub-system meets Advanced LIGOs stringent requirements and robustly supports the operation of the two detectors.

A high-precision mechanical absolute-rotation sensor

We have developed a mechanical absolute-rotation sensor capable of resolving ground rotation angle of less than 1 nrad/√Hz above 30 mHz and 0.2 nrad/√Hz above 100 mHz about a single horizontal axis. The device consists of a meter-scale beam balance, suspended by a pair of flexures, with a resonance frequency of 10.8 mHz. The center of mass is located 3 μm above the pivot, giving an excellent horizontal displacement rejection of better than 3 × 10(-5) rad/m. The angle of the beam is read out optically using a high-sensitivity autocollimator. We have also built a tiltmeter with better than 1 nrad/√Hz sensitivity above 30 mHz. Co-located measurements using the two instruments allowed us to distinguish between background rotation signal at low frequencies and intrinsic instrument noise. The rotation sensor is useful for rotational seismology and for rejecting background rotation signal from seismometers in experiments demanding high levels of seismic isolation, such as Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory.

Newtonian-noise cancellation in large-scale interferometric GW detectors using seismic tiltmeters

The mitigation of terrestrial gravity noise, also known as Newtonian noise (NN), is one of the foremost challenges to improve low-frequency sensitivity of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. At frequencies above 1 Hz, it is predicted that gravity noise from seismic surface Rayleigh waves is the dominant contribution to NN in surface detectors, and may still contribute significantly in future underground detectors. Noise cancellation based on a coherent estimate of NN using data from a seismometer array was proposed in the past. In this article, we propose an alternative scheme to cancel NN using a seismic tiltmeter. It is shown that even under pessimistic assumptions concerning the complexity of the seismic field, a single tiltmeter under each test mass of the detector is sufficient to achieve substantial noise cancellation. A technical tiltmeter design is presented to achieve the required sensitivity in the Newtonian-noise frequency band.

Low-frequency terrestrial tensor gravitational-wave detector

Terrestrial gravitational-wave (GW) detectors are mostly based on Michelson-type laser interferometers with arm lengths of a few km and signal bandwidths of tens of Hz to a few kHz. Many conceivable sources would emit GWs below 10 Hz. A low-frequency tensor GW detector can be constructed by combining six magnetically levitated superconducting test masses. Seismic noise and Newtonian gravity noise are serious obstacles in constructing terrestrial GW detectors at such low frequencies. By using the transverse nature of GWs, a full tensor detector, which can in principle distinguish GWs from near-field Newtonian gravity, can be constructed. Such a tensor detector is sensitive to GWs coming from any direction with any polarization; thus a single antenna is capable of resolving the source direction and polarization. We present a design concept of a tensor GW detector that could reach a strain sensitivity of 10−19–10−20 Hz−1/2 at 0.2–10 Hz, compute its intrinsic detector noise, and discuss procedures of mitigating the seismic and Newtonian noise.

Low‐Frequency Tilt Seismology with a Precision Ground‐Rotation Sensor

We describe measurements of the rotational component of teleseismic surface waves using an inertial high-precision ground-rotation-sensor installed at the LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO). The sensor has a noise floor of 0.4 nrad

CRYOGENIC TEST OF THE GRAVITATIONAL INVERSE-SQUARE LAW

/ \sqrt{\rm Hz}

Subtracting Tilt from a Horizontal Seismometer Using a Ground‐Rotation Sensor

at 50 mHz and a translational coupling of less than 1

Gravitational wave detection on the Moon and the moons of Mars

\mu

Improving active seismic isolation in aLIGO using a ground rotation sensor

rad/m enabling translation-free measurement of small rotations. We present observations of the rotational motion from Rayleigh waves of six teleseismic events from varied locations and with magnitudes ranging from M6.7 to M7.9. These events were used to estimate phase dispersion curves which shows agreement with a similar analysis done with an array of three STS-2 seismometers also located at LHO.

Reproducible Analysis and Blindness in a Null Test of Newton's Gravitational Inverse Square Law At Sub-millimeter Scales

Title of dissertation: Cryogenic Test of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law Below 100-Micrometer Length Scales Krishna Raj Yethadka Venkateswara, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Ho Jung Paik Department of Physics The inverse-square law is a hallmark of theories of gravity, impressively demonstrated from astronomical scales to sub-millimeter scales, yet we do not have a complete quantized theory of gravity applicable at the shortest distance scale. Problems within modern physics such as the hierarchy problem, the cosmological constant problem, and the strong CP problem in the Standard Model motivate a search for new physics. Theories such as large extra dimensions, ‘fat gravitons,’ and the axion, proposed to solve these problems, can result in a deviation from the gravitational inverse-square law below 100 μm and are thus testable in the laboratory. We have conducted a sub-millimeter test of the inverse-square law at 4.2 K. To minimize Newtonian errors, the experiment employed a near-null source, a disk of large diameter-to-thickness ratio. Two test masses, also disk-shaped, were positioned on the two sides of the source mass at a nominal distance of 280 μm. As the source was driven sinusoidally, the response of the test masses was sensed through a superconducting differential accelerometer. Any deviations from the inverse-square law would appear as a violation signal at the second harmonic of the source frequency, due to symmetry. We improved the design of the experiment significantly over an earlier version, by separating the source mass suspension from the detector housing and making the detector a true differential accelerometer. We identified the residual gas pressure as an error source, and developed ways to overcome the problem. During the experiment we further identified the two dominant sources of error − magnetic cross-talk and electrostatic coupling. Using cross-talk cancellation and residual balance, these were reduced to the level of the limiting random noise. No deviations from the inverse-square law were found within the experimental error (2σ) down to a length scale λ = 100 μm at the level of coupling constant |α| ≤ 2. Extra dimensions were searched down to a length scale of 78 μm (|α| ≤ 4). We have also proposed modifications to the current experimental design in the form of new tantalum source mass and installing additional accelerometers, to achieve an amplifier noise limited sensitivity. Cryogenic Test of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law Below 100-Micrometer Length Scales by Krishna Raj Yethadka Venkateswara Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Ho Jung Paik, Chair/Advisor Professor Theodore Allan Jacobson Professor M. Coleman Miller Dr. M. Vol Moody Professor Peter S. Shawhan c