The Influence of Dual-Recycling on Parametric Instabilities at Advanced LIGO

Laser interferometers with high circulating power and suspended optics, such as the LIGO gravitational wave detectors, experience an optomechanical coupling effect known as a parametric instability: the runaway excitation of a mechanical resonance in a mirror driven by the optical field. This can saturate the interferometer sensing and control systems and limit the observation time of the detector. Current mitigation techniques at the LIGO sites are successfully suppressing all observed parametric instabilities, and focus on the behaviour of the instabilities in the Fabry-Perot arm cavities of the interferometer, where the instabilities are first generated. In this paper we model the full dual-recycled Advanced LIGO design with inherent imperfections. We find that the addition of the power- and signal-recycling cavities shapes the interferometer response to mechanical modes, resulting in up to four times as many peaks. Changes to the accumulated phase or Gouy phase in the signal-recycling cavity have a significant impact on the parametric gain, and therefore which modes require suppression.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, 2 ancillary file

High dynamic range spatial mode decomposition

Accurate readout of low-power optical higher-order spatial modes is of increasing importance to the precision metrology community. Mode sensors are used to prevent mode mismatches from degrading quantum and thermal noise mitigation strategies. Direct mode analysis sensors (MODAN) are a promising technology for real-time monitoring of arbitrary higher-order modes. We demonstrate MODAN with photo-diode readout to mitigate the typically low dynamic range of CCDs. We look for asymmetries in the response our sensor to break degeneracies in the relative alignment of the MODAN and photo-diode and consequently improve the dynamic range of the mode sensor. We provide a tolerance analysis and show methodology that can be applied for sensors beyond first-order spatial modes

Coating-free mirrors for high precision interferometric experiments

Thermal noise in mirror optical coatings may not only limit the sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors in their most sensitive frequency band but is also a major impediment for experiments that aim to reach the standard quantum limit or cool mechanical systems to their quantum ground state. We present the design and experimental characterization of a highly reflecting mirror without any optical coating. This coating-free mirror is based on total internal reflection and Brewster-angle coupling. In order to characterize its performance, the coating-free mirror was incorporated into a triangular ring cavity together with a high quality conventional mirror. The finesse of this cavity was measured using an amplitude transfer function to be about F≃4000. This finesse corresponds to a reflectivity of the coating-free mirror of about R≃99.89%. In addition, the dependence of the reflectivity on rotation was mapped out

Passive-performance, analysis, and upgrades of a 1-ton seismic attenuation system

The 10m Prototype facility at the Albert-Einstein-Institute (AEI) in Hanover, Germany, employs three large seismic attenuation systems to reduce mechanical motion. The AEI Seismic-Attenuation-System (AEI-SAS) uses mechanical anti-springs in order to achieve resonance frequencies below 0.5Hz. This system provides passive isolation from ground motion by a factor of about 400 in the horizontal direction at 4Hz and in the vertical direction at 9Hz. The presented isolation performance is measured under vacuum conditions using a combination of commercial and custom-made inertial sensors. Detailed analysis of this performance led to the design and implementation of tuned dampers to mitigate the effect of the unavoidable higher order modes of the system. These dampers reduce RMS motion substantially in the frequency range between 10 and 100Hz in 6 degrees of freedom. The results presented here demonstrate that the AEI-SAS provides substantial passive isolation at all the fundamental mirror-suspension resonances

Sensors and Actuators for the Advanced LIGO+ Upgrade

Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO A+) is a major upgrade to LIGO—the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. For the A+ project, we have developed, produced, and characterized sensors and electronics to interrogate new optical suspensions designed to isolate optics from vibrations. The central element is a displacement sensor with an integrated electromagnetic actuator known as a BOSEM (Birmingham Optical Sensor and ElectroMagnetic actuator) and its readout and drive electronics required to integrate them into LIGO’s control and data system. In this paper, we report on the improvements to the sensors and the testing procedures undertaken to meet the enhanced performance requirements set out by the A+ upgrade to the detectors. The best devices reach a noise level of 4.5 ×10−11m/√Hz at a measurement frequency of 1 Hz, an improvement of 6.7 times over standard devices

Huddle test measurement of a near Johnson noise limited geophone

In this paper, the sensor noise of two geophone configurations (L-22D and L-4C geophones from Sercel with custom built amplifiers) was measured by performing two huddle tests. It is shown that the accuracy of the results can be significantly improved by performing the huddle test in a seismically quiet environment and by using a large number of reference sensors to remove the seismic foreground signal from the data. Using these two techniques, the measured sensor noise of the two geophone configurations matched the calculated predictions remarkably well in the bandwidth of interest (0.01 Hz–100 Hz). Low noise operational amplifiers OPA188 were utilized to amplify the L-4C geophone to give a sensor that was characterized to be near Johnson noise limited in the bandwidth of interest with a noise value of 10−11 m/Hz⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯√10−11 m/Hz at 1 Hz

Compensation of Strong Thermal Lensing in High Optical Power Cavities

In an experiment to simulate the conditions in high optical power advanced gravitational wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO, we show that strong thermal lenses form in accordance with predictions and that they can be compensated using an intra-cavity compensation plate heated on its cylindrical surface. We show that high finesse ~1400 can be achieved in cavities with internal compensation plates, and that the cavity mode structure can be maintained by thermal compensation. It is also shown that the measurements allow a direct measurement of substrate optical absorption in the test mass and the compensation plate.Comment: 8 page

Report on an all-sky LIGO search for periodic gravitational waves in the S4 data

We report on an all-sky search with the LIGO detectors for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency range 50-1000 Hz and having a negative frequency time derivative with magnitude between zero and $10^{-8}$ Hz/s. Data from the fourth LIGO science run have been used in this search. Three different semi-coherent methods of summing strain power were applied. Observing no evidence for periodic gravitational radiation, we report upper limits on strain amplitude and interpret these limits to constrain radiation from rotating neutron stars.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, presented at Amaldi7, Sydney (July 2007