Related papers: Damping parametric instabilities in future gravita…
Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO need to be able to measure changes in their arm lengths of order $10^{-18}~$m or smaller. This requires very high laser power in order to raise the signal above shot noise. One…
Interferometric gravitational wave detectors operate with high optical power in their arms in order to achieve high shot-noise limited strain sensitivity. A significant limitation to increasing the optical power is the phenomenon of…
Advanced gravitational wave interferometric detectors will operate at their design sensitivity with nearly 1MW of laser power stored in the arm cavities. Such large power may lead to the uncontrolled growth of acoustic modes in the test…
Parametric instabilities have long been studied as a potentially limiting effect in high-power interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Until now, however, these instabilities have never been observed in a kilometer-scale…
We present a simple feedback description of parametric instabilities which can be applied to a variety of optical systems. Parametric instabilities are of particular interest to the field of gravitational-wave interferometry where high…
Parametric instability is an intrinsic risk in high power laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors, in which the optical cavity modes interact with the acoustic modes of the mirrors leading to exponential growth of the acoustic…
A key action for enhancing the sensitivity of gravitational wave (GW) detectors based on laser interferometry is to increase the laser power. However, in such a high-power regime, a nonlinear optomechanical phenomenon called parametric…
Near-unstable cavities have been proposed as an enabling technology for future gravitational wave detectors, as their compact structure and large beam spots can reduce the coating thermal noise of the interferometer. We present a tabletop…
Direct and unequivocal detection of gravitational waves represents a great challenge of contemporary physics and astrophysics. A worldwide effort is currently operating towards this direction, building ever sensitive detectors, improving…
The operation of an interferometer for gravitational waves detection requires sophisticated feedback controls in many parts of the apparatus. The aim of this lecture is to introduce the types of problems to be faced in this line of…
Seismic noise will be the dominant source of noise at low frequencies for ground based gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO now under construction. Future interferometers installed at LIGO plan to use at least a double pendulum…
The basic constituent of interferometric gravitational wave detectors -- the test mass to test mass interferometric link -- behaves as a differential dynamometer measuring effective differential forces, comprising an integrated measure of…
Increasing the laser power is essential to improve the sensitivity of interferometric gravitational wave detectors. However, optomechanical parametric instabilities can set a limit to that power. It is of major importance to understand and…
We present a study of three-mode parametric instability in large-scale gravitational-wave detectors. Previous work used a linearised model to study the onset of instability. This paper presents a non-linear study of this phenomenon, which…
We present an approach to experimentally evaluate gravity gradient noise, a potentially limiting noise source in advanced interferometric gravitational wave (GW) detectors. In addition, the method can be used to provide sub-percent…
This paper focuses on the next detectors for gravitational wave astronomy which will be required after the current ground based detectors have completed their initial observations, and probably achieved the first direct detection of…
Gravitational wave emission is expected to arise from a variety of astrophysical phenomena. A new generation of detectors with sensitivity consistent with expectation from such sources is being developed. The Laser Interferometer…
This paper explores the quantum and classical descriptions of gravitational wave detection in interferometers like LIGO. We demonstrate that a graviton scattering and quantum optics model succeeds in explaining the observed arm…
The first generation of ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors, LIGO, GEO and Virgo, have operated and taken data at their design sensitivities over the last few years. The data has been examined for the presence of…
A detailed simulation of Advanced LIGO test mass optical cavities shows that parametric instabilities will excite acoustic modes in the test masses in the frequency range 28-35 kHz and 64-72 kHz. Using nominal Advanced LIGO optical cavity…