Detector Description and Performance for the First Coincidence Observations between LIGO and GEO

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 sensitivity levels, the data can be used to place better upper limits on the flux of gravitational waves incident on the earth than previous direct measurements. This paper describes the instruments and the data in some detail, as a companion to analysis papers based on the first data.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures 17 Sept 03: author list amended, minor editorial change

Silica research in Glasgow

The Glasgow group is involved in the construction of the GEO600 interferometer as well as in R and D activity on technology for advanced gravitational wave detectors. GEO600 will be the first GW detector using quasimonolithic silica suspensions in order to decrease thermal noise significantly with respect to steel wire suspensions. The results concerning GEO600 suspension mounting and performance will be shown in the first section. Section 2 is devoted to the present results from the direct measurement of thermal noise in mirrors mounted in the 1.0 m interferometer in Glasgow which has a sensitivity limit of 4 * 10/sup -19/ m Hz/sup -1/2/ above 1 kHz. Section 3 presents results on the measurements of coating losses. R and D activity has been carried out to understand better how thermal noise in the suspensions affects the detector sensitivity, and in section 4 a discussion on the non-linear thermoelastic effect is presented