It has been reported that treating music wire (high carbon steel wire) by
cooling to cryogenic temperatures can enhance its mechanical properties with
particular reference to those properties important for musical performance. We
use such wire for suspending many of the optics in Advanced LIGO, the upgrade
to LIGO - the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Two
properties that particularly interest us are mechanical loss and breaking
strength. A decrease in mechanical loss would directly reduce the thermal noise
associated with the suspension, thus enhancing the noise performance of mirror
suspensions within the detector. An increase in strength could allow thinner
wire to be safely used, which would enhance the dilution factor of the
suspension, again leading to lower suspension thermal noise. In this article we
describe the results of an investigation into some of the mechanical properties
of music wire, comparing untreated wire with the same wire which has been
cryogenically treated. For the samples we studied we conclude that there is no
significant difference in the properties of interest for application in
gravitational wave detectors
