1,292 research outputs found
The GEO 600 laser system
Interferometric gravitational wave detectors require high optical power, single frequency lasers with very good beam quality and high amplitude and frequency stability as well as high long-term reliability as input light source. For GEO 600 a laser system with these properties is realized by a stable planar, longitudinally pumped 12 W Nd:YAG rod laser which is injection-locked to a monolithic 800 mW Nd:YAG non-planar ring oscillator. Frequency control signals from the mode cleaners are fed to the actuators of the non-planar ring oscillator which determines the frequency stability of the system. The system power stabilization acts on the slave laser pump diodes which have the largest influence on the output power. In order to gain more output power, a combined Nd:YAGNd:YVO4 system is scaled to more than 22 W
A non-geodesic motion in the R^-1 theory of gravity tuned with observations
In the general picture of high order theories of gravity, recently, the R^-1
theory has been analyzed in two different frameworks. In this letter a third
context is added, considering an explicit coupling between the R^-1 function of
the Ricci scalar and the matter Lagrangian. The result is a non-geodesic motion
of test particles which, in principle, could be connected with Dark Matter and
Pioneer anomaly problems.Comment: Accepted for Modern Physics Letters
Novel technique for thermal lens measurement in commonly used optical components
The absorption of light in transmissive optics cause a thermally
induced effect known as thermal lensing. This effect provokes an often
undesired change of a laser beam transmitted by the optic. In this paper we
present a measurement method that allows us to determine thermal lensing
in commonly used optical components. The beam influenced by the thermal
lens is expanded into the eigenmodes of an optical cavity, and its modal
content is analyzed in the eigenbasis of the cavity. The measured quantity
depends neither on beam parameters nor on the position of the optical
component under investigation. This method allows, to our knowledge, for
the first time the direct measurement of the mode conversion coefficient je2j
of the thermal lens
Generation of high-purity higher-order Laguerre-Gauss beams at high laser power
We have investigated the generation of highly pure higher-order
Laguerre-Gauss (LG) beams at high laser power of order 100W, the same regime
that will be used by 2nd generation gravitational wave interferometers such as
Advanced LIGO. We report on the generation of a helical type LG33 mode with a
purity of order 97% at a power of 83W, the highest power ever reported in
literature for a higher-order LG mode.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Stabilized High Power Laser for Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors
Second generation gravitational wave detectors require high power lasers with several 100W of output power and with very low temporal and spatial fluctuations. In this paper we discuss possible setups to achieve high laser power and describe a 200W prestabilized laser system (PSL). The PSL noise requirements for advanced gravitational wave detectors will be discussed in general and the stabilization scheme proposed for the Advanced LIGO PSL will be described. Special emphasis will be given to the most demanding power stabilization requiremets and new results (RIN ≤ 4×10-9/surdHz) will be presented
Physical Acoustics
Contains reports on two research projects.United States Navy, Office of Naval Research (Contract Nonr-1841(42)
Parametric instabilities in the LCGT arm cavity
We evaluated the parametric instabilities of LCGT (Japanese interferometric
gravitational wave detector project) arm cavity. The number of unstable modes
of LCGT is 10-times smaller than that of Advanced LIGO (U.S.A.). Since the
strength of the instabilities of LCGT depends on the mirror curvature more
weakly than that of Advanced LIGO, the requirement of the mirror curvature
accuracy is easier to be achieved. The difference in the parametric
instabilities between LCGT and Advanced LIGO is because of the thermal noise
reduction methods (LCGT, cooling sapphire mirrors; Advanced LIGO, fused silica
mirrors with larger laser beams), which are the main strategies of the
projects. Elastic Q reduction by the barrel surface (0.2 mm thickness
TaO) coating is effective to suppress instabilities in the LCGT arm
cavity. Therefore, the cryogenic interferometer is a smart solution for the
parametric instabilities in addition to thermal noise and thermal lensing.Comment: 6 pages,3 figures. Amaldi7 proceedings, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.
(accepted
Stabilized high-power laser system for the gravitational wave detector advanced LIGO
An ultra-stable, high-power cw Nd:YAG laser system, developed for the ground-based gravitational wave detector Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), was comprehensively characterized. Laser power, frequency, beam pointing and beam quality were simultaneously stabilized using different active and passive schemes. The output beam, the performance of the stabilization, and the cross-coupling between different stabilization feedback control loops were characterized and found to fulfill most design requirements. The employed stabilization schemes and the achieved performance are of relevance to many high-precision optical experiments
The Cauchy convergence of T and P-approximant templates for test-mass Kerr binary systems
In this work we examine the Cauchy convergence of both post-Newtonian
(T-approximant) and re-summed post-Newtonian (P-approximant) templates for the
case of a test-mass orbiting a Kerr black hole along a circular equatorial
orbit. The Cauchy criterion demands that the inner product between the and
order approximation approaches unity, as we increase the order of
approximation. In previous works, it has been shown that we achieve greater
fitting factors and better parameter estimation using the P-approximant
templates for both Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes. In this work, we show
that the P-approximant templates also display a faster Cauchy convergence
making them a superior template to the standard post-Newtonian templates.Comment: 5 pages, Replaced with shortened published versio
Physical Acoustics
Contains research objectives and reports on three research projects.U.S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract Nonr-1841(42
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