Related papers: Calibration Uncertainty for Advanced LIGO's First …
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…
The Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors will be installed starting in 2011, with completion scheduled for 2015. The new detectors will improve the strain sensitivity of current instruments by a factor of ten, with a thousandfold…
With the LIGO announcement of the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs), the GW Astronomy was formally ushered into our age. After one-hundred years of theoretical investigation and fifty years of experimental endeavor, this…
The ongoing global effort to detect gravitational waves continues to push the limits of precision measurement while aiming to provide a new tool for understanding both astrophysics and fundamental physics. Squeezed states of light offer a…
Nearly a century after Einstein first predicted the existence of gravitational waves, a global network of earth-based gravitational wave observatories is seeking to directly detect this faint radiation using precision laser interferometry.…
Hardware injections are simulated gravitational-wave signals added to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The detectors' test masses are physically displaced by an actuator in order to simulate the effects of a…
LIGO --- The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory --- is one of several large projects being undertaken in the United States, Europe and Japan to detect gravitational radiation. The novelty and precision of these instruments…
The Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors are second generation instruments designed and built for the two LIGO observatories in Hanford, WA and Livingston, LA. The two instruments are identical in design, and are specialized versions…
Quantum fluctuations in the phase and amplitude quadratures of light set limitations on the sensitivity of modern optical instruments. The sensitivity of the interferometric gravitational wave detectors, such as the Advanced Laser…
Gravitational waves carry unique information about high-energy astrophysical events such as the inspiral and merger of neutron stars and black holes, core collapse in massive stars, and other sources. Large gravitational wave (GW) detectors…
We show how LIGO is expected to detect coalescing binary black holes at $z>1$, that are lensed by the intervening galaxy population. Gravitational magnification, $\mu$, strengthens gravitational wave signals by $\sqrt{\mu}$, without…
We introduce a method based on the loudest event statistic to calculate an upper limit or interval on the astrophysical rate of binary coalescence. The calculation depends upon the sensitivity and noise background of the detectors, and a…
We report on the status of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the plans and progress towards Enhanced and Advanced LIGO. The initial LIGO detectors have finished a two year long data run during which a full…
The detection of gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo provides an opportunity to test general relativity in a regime that is inaccessible to traditional astronomical observations and laboratory tests. We present four…
The ``optical springs'' regime of the signal-recycled configuration of laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors is analyzed taking in account optical losses in the interferometer arm cavities. This regime allows to obtain…
For 17 days in August and September 2002, the LIGO and GEO interferometer gravitational wave detectors were operated in coincidence to produce their first data for scientific analysis. Although the detectors were still far from their design…
Aims. The detection and measurement of gravitational-waves from coalescing neutron-star binary systems is an important science goal for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. In addition to emitting gravitational-waves at frequencies…
The LIGO observatories detect gravitational waves through monitoring changes in the detectors' length down to below $10^{-19}$\,$m/\sqrt{Hz}$ variation---a small fraction of the size of the atoms that make up the detector. To achieve this…
The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers by LIGO has opened the era of gravitational wave astronomy, revealing a previously hidden side of the cosmos. To maximize the reach of the existing LIGO observatory…
The reliability of the first detection is one of the most interesting challenges for the gravitational wave community. To increase the detection confidence, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations have already started coincident observations…