Related papers: Negative Backaction Noise in Interferometric Detec…
A fundamental limit to the sensitivity of optical interferometers is imposed by Brownian thermal fluctuations of the mirrors' surfaces. This thermal noise can be reduced by using larger beams which "average out" the random fluctuations of…
We present a method characterizing thermal noise in an optical cavity independent from quantum noise despite the thermal noise falling below the quantum noise limit. Using this method, we measured the thermal noise contribution from a GaAs…
In the baseline design for advanced LIGO interferometers, the most serious noise source is tiny, dynamically fluctuating bumps and valleys on the faces of the arm-cavity mirrors, caused by random flow of heat in the mirrors' sapphire…
A standard quarter-wavelength multilayer optical coating will produce the highest reflectivity for a given number of coating layers, but in general it will not yield the lowest thermal noise for a prescribed reflectivity. Coatings with the…
Suitable shaping (in particular, flattening and broadening) of the laser beam has recently been proposed as an effective device to reduce internal (mirror) thermal noise in advanced gravitational wave interferometric detectors. Based on…
We present a joint theoretical and experimental characterization of thermo-refractive noise in high quality factor ($Q$), small mode volume ($V$) optical microcavities. Analogous to well-studied stability limits imposed by Brownian motion…
Thermally induced fluctuations impose a fundamental limit on precision measurement. In optical interferometry, the current bounds of stability and sensitivity are dictated by the excess mechanical damping of the high-reflectivity coatings…
Higher-order mode locking has been proposed to reduce the thermal noise limit of reference cavities. By locking a laser to the HG02 mode of a 10-cm long all ULE cavity, and measure its performance with the three-cornered-hat method among…
The sensitivity of next-generation gravitational-wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO and LCGT should be limited mostly by quantum noise with an expected technical progress to reduce seismic noise and thermal noise. Those detectors will…
One of the main residual limitations of inertial sensors based on atom interferometry stems from laser beam distortions, which cause parasitic phase shifts and non-homogeneous matter-light couplings. Here we present numerical simulations,…
The back-linked Fabry-Perot interferometer (BLFPI) is an interferometer topology proposed for space gravitational wave antennas with the use of inter-satellite Fabry-Perot interferometers. The BLFPI offers simultaneous and independent…
The suspension noise in interferometric gravitational wave detectors is caused by losses at the top and the bottom attachments of each suspension fiber. We use the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem to argue that by careful positioning of the…
The radiation pressure of light can act to damp and cool the vibrational motion of a mechanical resonator. In understanding the quantum limits of this cooling, one must consider the effect of shot noise fluctuations on the final thermal…
We achieved a 0.5 Hz optical beat note line width with ~ 0.1 Hz/s frequency drift at 972 nm between two external cavity diode lasers independently stabilized to two vertically mounted Fabry-Perot (FP) reference cavities. Vertical FP…
Fundamental sensitivity of an optical interferometric gravitational wave detector increases with increase of the optical power which, in turn, limited because of the opto-mechanical parametric instabilities of the interferometer. We propose…
Reduction of coating thermal noise is a key issue in precise measurements with an optical interferometer. A good example of such a measurement device is a gravitational-wave detector, where each mirror is coated by a few tens of…
Using one arm of the Michelson interferometer and the power recycling mirror of the interferometric gravitational wave detector GEO600, we created a Fabry-Perot cavity with a length of 1200 m. The main purpose of this experiment was to…
Optical losses degrade the sensitivity of laser interferometric instruments. They reduce the number of signal photons and introduce technical noise associated with diffuse light. In quantum-enhanced metrology, they break the entanglement…
We report the frequency stabilization of an erbium-doped fiber distributed-feedback laser using an all-fiber based Michelson interferometer of large arm imbalance. The interferometer uses a 1 km SMF-28 optical fiber spool and an acousto…
Using a Nd:YVO4 microchip laser with a relaxation frequency in the megahertz range, we have experimentally compared a heterodyne interferometer based on a Michelson configuration with an autodyne interferometer based on the laser optical…