The AEI 10 m prototype interferometer

A 10 m prototype interferometer facility is currently being set up at the AEI in Hannover, Germany. The prototype interferometer will be housed inside a 100 m^3 ultra-high vacuum envelope. Seismically isolated optical tables inside the vacuum system will be interferometrically interconnected via a suspension platform interferometer. Advanced isolation techniques will be used, such as inverted pendulums and geometrical anti-spring filters in combination with multiple-cascaded pendulum suspensions, containing an all-silica monolithic last stage. The light source is a 35 W Nd:YAG laser, geometrically filtered by passing it through a photonic crystal fibre and a rigid pre-modecleaner cavity. Laser frequency stabilisation will be achieved with the aid of a high finesse suspended reference cavity in conjunction with a molecular iodine reference. Coating thermal noise will be reduced by the use of Khalili cavities as compound end mirrors. Data acquisition and control of the experiments is based on the AdvLIGO digital control and data system. The aim of the project is to test advanced techniques for GEO 600 as well as to conduct experiments in macroscopic quantum mechanics. Reaching standard quantum-limit sensitivity for an interferometer with 100 g mirrors and subsequently breaching this limit, features most prominently among these experiments. In this paper we present the layout and current status of the AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer project

Frequency noise and intensity noise of next-generation gravitational-wave detectors with RF/DC readout schemes

The sensitivity of next-generation gravitational-wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO and LCGT should be limited mostly by quantum noise with an expected technical progress to reduce seismic noise and thermal noise. Those detectors will employ the optical configuration of resonant-sideband-extraction that can be realized with a signal-recycling mirror added to the Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometer. While this configuration can reduce quantum noise of the detector, it can possibly increase laser frequency noise and intensity noise. The analysis of laser noise in the interferometer with the conventional configuration has been done in several papers, and we shall extend the analysis to the resonant-sideband-extraction configuration with the radiation pressure effect included. We shall also refer to laser noise in the case we employ the so-called DC readout scheme.Comment: An error in Fig. 10 in the published version in PRD has been corrected in this version; an erratum has been submitted to PRD. After correction, this figure reflects a significant difference in the ways RF and DC readout schemes are susceptible to laser noise. In addition, the levels of mirror loss imbalances and input laser amplitude noise have also been updated to be more realistic for Advanced LIG

Demonstration of displacement-noise-free interferometry using bi-directional Mach–Zehnder interferometers

We have demonstrated displacement- and frequency-noise-free laser interferometry (DFI) by partially implementing a recently proposed optical configuration using bi-directional Mach–Zehnder interferometers (MZIs). This partial implementation, the minimum necessary to be called DFI, has confirmed the essential feature of DFI: the combination of two MZI signals can be carried out in a way that cancels the displacement noise of the mirrors and beam splitters while maintaining gravitational-wave signals. The attained maximum displacement noise suppression was 45 dB

The Experimental plan of the 4m Resonant Sideband Extraction Prototype for The LCGT

The 4m Resonant Sideband Extraction (RSE) interferometer is a planned prototype of the LCGT interferometer. The aim of the experiment is to operate a powerrecycled Broadband RSE interferometer with suspended optics and to achieve diagonalization of length signals of the central part of the interferometer directly through the optical setup. Details of the 4m RSE interferometer control method as well as the design of the experimental setup will be presented

The experimental plan of displacement- and frequency-noise free laser interferometer

We present the partial demonstration of displacement- and laser-noise free interferometer (DFI) and the next experimental plan to examine the complete configuration. A part of the full implementation of DFI has been demonstrated to confirm the cancellation of beamsplitter displacements. The displacements were suppressed by about two orders of magnitude. The aim of the next experiment is to operate the system and to confirm the cancellation of all displacement noises, while the gravitational wave (GW) signals survive. The optical displacements will be simulated by electro-optic modulators (EOM). To simulate the GW contribution to laser lights, we will use multiple EOMs

Coating thermal noise of a finite-size cylindrical mirror

Thermal noise of a mirror is one of the limiting noise sources in the high precision measurement such as gravitational-wave detection, and the modeling of thermal noise has been developed and refined over a decade. In this paper, we present a derivation of coating thermal noise of a finite-size cylindrical mirror based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The result agrees to a previous result with an infinite-size mirror in the limit of large thickness, and also agrees to an independent result based on the mode expansion with a thin-mirror approximation. Our study will play an important role not only to accurately estimate the thermal-noise level of gravitational-wave detectors but also to help analyzing thermal noise in quantum-measurement experiments with lighter mirrors.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Reduction and possible elimination of coating thermal noise using a rigidly controlled cavity with a QND technique

Thermal noise of a mirror is one of the most important issues in high precision measurements such as gravitational-wave detection or cold damping experiments. It has been pointed out that thermal noise of a mirror with multi-layer coatings can be reduced by mechanical separation of the layers. In this paper, we introduce a way to further reduce thermal noise by locking the mechanically separated mirrors. The reduction is limited by the standard quantum limit of control noise, but it can be overcome with a quantum-non-demolition technique, which finally raises a possibility of complete elimination of coating thermal noise

Diagonalization of the length sensing matrix of a dual recycled laser interferometer gravitational wave antenna

Next generation gravitational wave antennas employ resonant sideband extraction (RSE) interferometers with Fabry-Perot cavities in the arms as an optical configuration. In order to realize stable, robust control of the detector system, it is a key issue to extract appropriate control signals for longitudinal degrees of freedom of the complex coupled-cavity system. In this paper, a novel length sensing and control scheme is proposed for the tuned RSE interferometer that is both simple and efficient. The sensing matrix can be well diagonalized, owing to a simple allocation of two rf modulations and to a macroscopic displacement of the cavity mirrors, which cause a detuning of the rf modulation sidebands

Development of a control scheme of homodyne detection for extracting ponderomotive squeezing from a Michelson interferometer

We developed a control scheme of homodyne detection. To operate the homodyne detector as easy as possible, a simple Michelson interferometer is used. Here a motivation that the control scheme of the homodyne detection is developed is for our future experiment of extracting the ponderomotively squeezed vacuum fluctuations. To obtain the best signalto- noise ratio using the homodyne detection, the homodyne phase should be optimized. The optimization of the homodyne phase is performed by changing a phase of a local oscillator for the homodyne detection from a point at which a signal is maximized. In fact, in this experiment, using the developed control scheme, we locked the Michelson interferometer with the homodyne detector and changed the phase of the local oscillator for the homodyne detection. Then, we measured signals quantity changed by changing the phase of the local oscillator for the homodyne detection. Here we used the output from the homodyne detection as the signal

Hot isostatic pressing of silicon nitride Sisub3n4 containing zircon, or zirconia and silica

A hydrothermal synthesis apparatus with a 10 KB cylinder was used to obtain a sintered body of silicon nitride. The sintering auxiliary agents used were zircon (ZrSiO4) and a mixture of zirconia (ZrO2) and silica (SiO2). Experiments were conducted with the amounts of ZrSi04 or ArO2 and SiO2 varying over a wide range and the results compared to discover the quantity of additive which produced sintering in silicon nitride by the hot pressing method