Arm length stabilisation for advanced gravitational wave detectors

Currently the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) is undergoing upgrades from Initial LIGO to become Advanced LIGO. Amongst these upgrades is the addition of a signal recycling mirror at the output port of the interferometer; upgrades of the mirror suspensions to quadruple pendulums; the implementation of less invasive and hence weaker test mass actuators; and the change of readout scheme from a heterodyne based RF readout to a homodyne based DC readout. The DC readout scheme requires the installation of an Output Mode Cleaner (OMC), to stop `junk light' generated in the interferometer from making its way to the DC photodetector where it can limit the sensitivity of the gravitational wave detector. The steering of the interferometer beam into the OMC will be handled by Tip Tilt mirrors designed at the Australian National University. The first core piece of work presented in this thesis was the characterisation of a prototype Tip Tilt mirror, which involved measuring the various eigenmodes of the mirror

Control and tuning of a suspended Fabry-Perot cavity using digitally-enhanced heterodyne interferometry

We present the first demonstration of real-time closed-loop control and deterministic tuning of an independently suspended Fabry-Perot optical cavity using digitally-enhanced heterodyne interferometry, realising a peak sensitivity of $\sim$10 pm$/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ over the 10-1000 Hz frequency band. The methods presented are readily extensible to multiple coupled cavities. As such, we anticipate that refinements of this technique may find application in future interferometric gravitational-wave detectors

Cooling of a gram-scale cantilever flexure to 70 mK with a servo-modified optical spring

A series of recent articles have presented results demonstrating optical cooling of macroscopic objects, highlighting the importance of this phenomenon for investigations of macroscopic quantum mechanics and its implications for thermal noise in gravitational wave detectors. In this Letter, we present a measurement of the off-resonance suspension thermal noise of a 1 g oscillator, and we show that it can be cooled to just 70 mK. The cooling is achieved by using a servo to impose a phase delay between oscillator motion and optical force. A model is developed to show how optical rigidity and optical cooling can be interchangeable using this technique

Arm-length stabilisation for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors using frequency-doubled auxiliary lasers

Residual motion of the arm cavity mirrors is expected to prove one of the principal impediments to systematic lock acquisition in advanced gravitational-wave interferometers. We present a technique which overcomes this problem by employing auxiliary lasers at twice the fundamental measurement frequency to pre-stabilise the arm cavities' lengths. Applying this approach, we reduce the apparent length noise of a 1.3 m long, independently suspended Fabry-Perot cavity to 30 pm rms and successfully transfer longitudinal control of the system from the auxiliary laser to the measurement laser

Tip-tilt mirror suspension: Beam steering for advanced laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory sensing and control signals

We describe the design of a small optic suspension system, referred to as the tip-tilt mirror suspension, used to isolate selected small optics for the interferometer sensing and control beams in the advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors. The suspended optics are isolated in all 6 degrees of freedom, with eigenmode frequencies between 1.3 Hz and 10 Hz. The suspended optic has voice-coil actuators which provide an angular range of ±4 mrad in the pitch and yaw degrees of freedom.This work was supported by the Australian Research Council

Frequency dependence of thermal noise in gram-scale cantilever flexures

We present measurements of the frequency dependence of thermal noise in aluminum and niobium flexures. Our measurements cover the audio-frequency band from 10 Hz to 10 kHz, which is of particular relevance to ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors, and span up to an order of magnitude above and below the fundamental flexure resonances. Results from two flexures are well explained by a simple model in which both structural and thermoelastic loss play a role. The ability of such a model to explain this interplay is important for investigations of quantum-radiation-pressure noise and the standard quantum limit. Furthermore, measurements on a third flexure provide evidence that surface damage can affect the frequency dependence of thermal noise in addition to reducing the quality factor, a result which will aid the understanding of how aging effects impact on thermal noise behavior.Australian Research Counci

Hierarchical Hough all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S5 data

We describe a new pipeline used to analyze the data from the fifth science run (S5) of the LIGO detectors to search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated spinning neutron stars. The method employed is based on the Hough transform, which is a semi-coherent, computationally efficient, and robust pattern recognition technique. The Hough transform is used to find signals in the time-frequency plane of the data whose frequency evolution fits the pattern produced by the Doppler shift imposed on the signal by the Earth's motion and the pulsar's spin-down during the observation period. The main differences with respect to previous Hough all-sky searches are described. These differences include the use of a two-step hierarchical Hough search, analysis of coincidences among the candidates produced in the first and second year of S5, and veto strategies based on a $\chi^2$ test.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, Amaldi08 proceedings, submitted to JPC

Observation of Parametric Instability in Advanced LIGO

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 interferometer. In this work we describe the first observation of parametric instability in an Advanced LIGO detector, and the means by which it has been removed as a barrier to progress

The Advanced LIGO Input Optics

The advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors are nearing their design sensitivity and should begin taking meaningful astrophysical data in the fall of 2015. These resonant optical interferometers will have unprecedented sensitivity to the strains caused by passing gravitational waves. The input optics play a significant part in allowing these devices to reach such sensitivities. Residing between the pre-stabilized laser and the main interferometer, the input optics subsystem is tasked with preparing the laser beam for interferometry at the sub-attometer level while operating at continuous wave input power levels ranging from 100 mW to 150 W. These extreme operating conditions required every major component to be custom designed. These designs draw heavily on the experience and understanding gained during the operation of Initial LIGO and Enhanced LIGO. In this article, we report on how the components of the input optics were designed to meet their stringent requirements and present measurements showing how well they have lived up to their design