We have built and tested a 3.5 m high-finesse Fabry-Perot prototype inteferometer with a precision ellipsometer for the QED test and axion search (Q & A) experiment. We use X-pendulum-double-pendulum suspension designs and automatic control schemes developed by the gravitational-wave detection community. Verdet constant and Cotton-Mouton constant of the air are measured as a test. Double modulation with polarization modulation 100 Hz and magnetic-field modulation 0.05 Hz gives 10^{-7} rad phase noise for a 44-minute integration.
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0308080,
title = {Building a 3.5 m prototype interferometer for the Q & A vacuum birefringence experiment and high precision ellipsometry},
author = {Jeah-Sheng Wu and Wei-Tou Ni and Sheng-Jui Chen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0308080},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
This draft has been presented in the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves