Related papers: Automatic Mirror Alignment for VIRGO: First experi…
We present the design and fabrication of a miniaturized array of piezoelectrically actuated high speed Fresnel mirrors with individual mirror control. These Fresnel mirrors can be used to generate propagation invariant and self-healing…
We have created a new autonomous laser-guide-star adaptive-optics (AO) instrument on the 60-inch (1.5-m) telescope at Palomar Observatory called Robo-AO. The instrument enables diffraction-limited resolution observing in the visible and…
Mirror thermal noise is and will remain one of the main limitations to the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors based on laser interferometers. We report about projected mirror thermal noise due to losses in the mirror coatings and…
Sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors is limited in the high-frequency band by quantum shot noise and eventually limited by the optical loss in signal recycling cavity. This limit is the main obstacle on the way to detect…
Quantum optomechanical systems enable the study of fundamental questions on quantum nature of massive objects. For that a strong coupling between light and mechanical motion is required, which presents a challenge for massive objects. In…
We present the technology and control methods developed for the pointing system of the SPIDER experiment. SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect the imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the…
We present a method of broadening the dynamic range of optical interferometric detection of cantilever displacement. The key idea of this system is to use a wavelength-tunable laser source. The wavelength is subject to proportional-integral…
We report on the use of an interferometric weak value technique to amplify very small transverse deflections of an optical beam. By entangling the beam's transverse degrees of freedom with the which-path states of a Sagnac interferometer,…
The sensitivity in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-wave detectors is ultimately limited by quantum noise of light. We discuss the use of feedback mechanisms to reduce the quantum effects of radiation pressure. Recent…
The VLT Survey Telescope is a f/5.5 modified Ritchey-Chretien imaging telescope, which is being installed at the ESO-Paranal Observatory. It will provide a one square degree corrected field of view to perform survey-projects in the…
Light-phase-sensitive techniques, such as coherent multidimensional spectroscopy, are well-established in a broad spectral range, already spanning from radio-frequencies in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to visible and ultraviolet…
In this paper, we report the development of an intensity modulated fiber optic sensor for angular displacement measurement. This sensor was designed to present high sensitivity, linear response, wide bandwidth and, furthermore, to be simple…
Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO, GEO600 and Virgo record a surplus of information above and beyond possible gravitational-wave events. These auxiliary channels capture information about the state of the detector and…
Operating atom-interferometer gyroscopes outside a laboratory environment is challenging primarily owing to the instability of laser systems. To enhance the thermal stability of free-space laser systems, a compact laser system using fiber…
The VIRMOS consortium of French and Italian Institutes (PI: O. Le Fevre, co-PI: G. Vettolani) is manufacturing two wide field imaging multi-object spectrographs for the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope (VLT), with emphasis…
Thermal noise is expected to be the dominant source of noise in the most sensitive frequency band of second generation ground based gravitational wave detectors. Reshaping the beam to a flatter wider profile which probes more of the mirror…
In this paper a simple and very effective control system to monitor and suppress the beam jitter noise at the input of an optical system, called Beam Pointing Control (BPC) system, will be described showing the theoretical principle and an…
The Kamioka Gravitational wave detector (KAGRA) cryogenic gravitational-wave observatory has commenced joint observations with the worldwide gravitational wave detector network. Precise calibration of the detector response is essential for…
The MagAO-X instrument is an upgrade of the Magellan AO system that will introduce extreme adaptive optics capabilities for high-contrast imaging at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. A central component of this system is a…
We discuss the influence of Young's modulus temperature dependence on the number of parametrically unstable modes in a Fabry-Perot cavity of Advanced LIGO interferometer. Some unstable modes may be suppressed by changing the mirror's…