The Advanced Virgo (F. Acernese, Class. Quantum Grav., 32 (2015) 2) experiment will join in 2016 the international network of interferometric detectors, after the (currently ongoing) upgrade and commissioning of the detector. One critical point of the commissioning of the experiment is the development of a lock acquisition strategy for the arm cavities, i.e. the procedure which brings the cavities into their resonant condition, which is a requirement for the correct operation of the apparatus. In this short communication I will present a brief introduction to the problem of locking a cavity, with the purpose of describing a set of time-domain simulations for the arm cavities of Advanced Virgo, prerequisite to the definition of a locking strategy which will be used during the forthcoming commissioning of the detecto
