The quantum Cramér-Rao bound (QCRB) sets a fundamental limit for the measurement of classical signals with detectors operating in the quantum regime. Using linear-response theory and the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, we derive a general condition for achieving such a fundamental limit. When applied to classical displacement measurements with a test mass, this condition leads to an explicit connection between the QCRB and the standard quantum limit that arises from a tradeoff between the measurement imprecision and quantum backaction; the QCRB can be viewed as an outcome of a quantum nondemolition measurement with the backaction evaded. Additionally, we show that the test mass is more a resource for improving measurement sensitivity than a victim of the quantum backaction, which suggests a new approach to enhancing the sensitivity of a broad class of sensors. We illustrate these points with laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors.

In small-scale metallic systems, collective dislocation activity has been correlated with size effects in strength and with a steplike plastic response under uniaxial compression and tension. Yielding and plastic flow in these samples is often accompanied by the emergence of multiple dislocation avalanches. Dislocations might be active preyield, but their activity typically cannot be discerned because of the inherent instrumental noise in detecting equipment. We apply alternate current load perturbations via dynamic mechanical analysis during quasistatic uniaxial compression experiments on single crystalline Cu nanopillars with diameters of 500 nm and compute dynamic moduli at frequencies 0.1, 0.3, 1, and 10 Hz under progressively higher static loads until yielding. By tracking the collective aspects of the oscillatory stress-strain-time series in multiple samples, we observe an evolving dissipative component of the dislocation network response that signifies the transition from elastic behavior to dislocation avalanches in the globally preyield regime. We postulate that microplasticity, which is associated with the combination of dislocation avalanches and slow viscoplastic relaxations, is the cause of the dependency of dynamic modulus on the driving rate and the quasistatic stress. We construct a continuum mesoscopic dislocation dynamics model to compute the frequency response of stress over strain and obtain a consistent agreement with experimental observations. The results of our experiments and simulations present a pathway to discern and quantify correlated dislocation activity in the preyield regime of deforming crystals.

Quantum fluctuations in the phase and amplitude quadratures of light set limitations on the sensitivity of modern optical instruments. The sensitivity of the interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, such as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), is limited by quantum shot noise, quantum radiation pressure noise, and a set of classical noises. We show how the quantum properties of light can be used to distinguish these noises using correlation techniques. Particularly, in the first part of the paper we show estimations of the coating thermal noise and gas phase noise, hidden below the quantum shot noise in the Advanced LIGO sensitivity curve. We also make projections on the observatory sensitivity during the next science runs. In the second part of the paper we discuss the correlation technique that reveals the quantum radiation pressure noise from the background of classical noises and shot noise. We apply this technique to the Advanced LIGO data, collected during the first science run, and experimentally estimate the quantum correlations and quantum radiation pressure noise in the interferometer.

Interferometric gravitational wave observatories recently launched a new field of gravitational wave astronomy with the first detections of gravitational waves in 2015. The number and quality of these detections is limited in part by thermally induced vibrations in the mirrors, which show up as noise in these interferometers. One way to reduce this thermally induced noise is to use low temperature mirrors made of high purity single-crystalline silicon. However, these low temperatures must be achieved without increasing the mechanical vibration of the mirror surface or the vibration of any surface within close proximity to the mirrors. The vibration of either surface can impose a noise inducing phase shift on the light within the interferometer or physically push the mirror through oscillating radiation pressure. This paper proposes a system for the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) to achieve the dual goals of low temperature and low vibration to reduce the thermally induced noise in silicon mirrors. Experimental results are obtained at Stanford University to prove that these dual goals can be realized simultaneously.

The first direct gravitational-wave detection was made by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory on September 14, 2015. The GW150914 signal was strong enough to be apparent, without using any waveform model, in the filtered detector strain data. Here, features of the signal visible in the data are analyzed using concepts from Newtonian physics and general relativity, accessible to anyone with a general physics background. The simple analysis presented here is consistent with the fully general-relativistic analyses published elsewhere, in showing that the signal was produced by the inspiral and subsequent merger of two black holes. The black holes were each of approximately 35 M, still orbited each other as close as ~350 km apart and subsequently merged to form a single black hole. Similar reasoning, directly from the data, is used to roughly estimate how far these black holes were from the Earth, and the energy that they radiated in gravitational waves.

Newtonian gravitational noise from seismic fields is predicted to be a limiting noise source at low frequency for second generation gravitational-wave detectors. Mitigation of this noise will be achieved by Wiener filtering using arrays of seismometers deployed in the vicinity of all test masses. In this work, we present optimized configurations of seismometer arrays using a variety of simplified models of the seismic field based on seismic observations at LIGO Hanford. The model that best fits the seismic measurements leads to noise reduction limited predominantly by seismometer self-noise. A first simplified design of seismic arrays for Newtonian-noise cancellation at the LIGO sites is presented, which suggests that it will be sufficient to monitor surface displacement inside the buildings.

Some proposed interferometric gravitational wave detectors of the next generation are designed to use silicon test masses cooled to cryogenic temperatures. The test masses will need to be partially coated with high emissivity coating to provide sufficient cooling when they absorb the laser light. The mechanical loss of the Acktar Black coating is determined based on the measurements of the Q-factors of the bending vibration modes of coated and uncoated commercial silicon wafers. The Young's modulus of the coating material is determined using nanoindentation. We use this information to calculate thermal noise of the silicon test masses associated with a high emissivity coating on its lateral side (barrel). It is found that such a coating results in a less than 9% increase of the total strain noise of LIGO Voyager design for a future cryogenic gravitational wave detector.

Current laser-interferometric gravitational wave detectors employ a self-homodyne readout scheme where a comparatively large light power (5?50 mW) is detected per photosensitive element. For best sensitivity to gravitational waves, signal levels as low as the quantum shot noise have to be measured as accurately as possible. The electronic noise of the detection circuit can produce a relevant limit to this accuracy, in particular when squeezed states of light are used to reduce the quantum noise. We present a new electronic circuit design reducing the electronic noise of the photodetection circuit in the audio band. In the application of this circuit at the gravitational-wave detector GEO 600 the shot-noise to electronic noise ratio was permanently improved by a factor of more than 4 above 1 kHz, while the dynamic range was improved by a factor of 7. The noise equivalent photocurrent of the implemented photodetector and circuit is about 5 ?A/sqrt($Hz above 1 kHz with a maximum detectable photocurrent of 20 mA. With the new circuit, the observed squeezing level in GEO 600 increased by 0.2 dB. The new circuit also creates headroom for higher laser power and more squeezing to be observed in the future in GEO 600 and is applicable to other optics experiments.)

Crystalline materials, such as metals, are known to exhibit deviation from a simple linear relation between strain and stress when the latter exceeds the yield stress. In addition, it has been shown that metals respond to varying external stress in a discontinuous way in this regime, exhibiting discrete releases of energy. This crackling noise has been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically when the metals are operating in the plastic regime. In our study, we focus on the behavior of metals in the elastic regime, where the stresses are well below the yield stress. We describe an instrument that aims to characterize non-linear mechanical noise in metals when stressed in the elastic regime. In macroscopic systems, this phenomenon is expected to manifest as a non-stationary noise modulated by external disturbances applied to the material, a form of mechanical up-conversion of noise. The main motivation for this work is for the case of maraging steel components (cantilevers and wires) in the suspension systems of terrestrial gravitational wave detectors. Such instruments are planned to reach very ambitious displacement sensitivities, and therefore mechanical noise in the cantilevers could prove to be a limiting factor for the detectors? final sensitivities, mainly due to non-linear up-conversion of low frequency residual seismic motion to the frequencies of interest for the gravitational wave observations. We describe here the experimental setup, with a target sensitivity of 10 (?15) m/sqrt($Hz in the frequency range of 10?1000 Hz, a simple phenomenological model of the non-linear mechanical noise, and the analysis method that is inspired by this model.)

While global cosmological and local galactic abundance of dark matter is well established, its identity, physical size and composition remain a mystery. In this paper, we analyze an important question of dark matter detectability through its gravitational interaction, using current and next generation gravitational-wave observatories to look for macroscopic (kilogram-scale or larger) objects. Keeping the size of the dark matter objects to be smaller than the physical dimensions of the detectors, and keeping their mass as free parameters, we derive the expected event rates. For favorable choice of mass, we find that dark matter interactions could be detected in space-based detectors such as LISA at a rate of one per ten years. We then assume the existence of an additional Yukawa force between dark matter and regular matter. By choosing the range of the force to be comparable to the size of the detectors, we derive the levels of sensitivity to such a new force, which exceeds the sensitivity of other probes in a wide range of parameters. For sufficiently large Yukawa coupling strength, the rate of dark matter events can then exceed 10 per year for both ground- and space-based detectors. Thus, gravitational-wave observatories can make an important contribution to a global effort of searching for non-gravitational interactions of dark matter.

Thermal noise is a limiting factor in many high-precision optical experiments. A search is underway for novel optical materials with reduced thermal noise. One such pair of materials, gallium arsenide and aluminum-alloyed gallium arsenide (collectively referred to as AlGaAs), shows promise for its low Brownian noise when compared to conventional materials such as silica and tantala. However, AlGaAs has the potential to produce a high level of thermo-optic noise. We have fabricated a set of AlGaAs crystalline coatings, transferred to fused silica substrates, whose layer structure has been optimized to reduce thermo-optic noise by inducing coherent cancellation of the thermoelastic and thermorefractive effects. By measuring the photothermal transfer function of these mirrors, we find evidence that this optimization has been successful.

Laser gyroscopes making use of the Sagnac effect have been used as highly accurate rotation sensors for many years. First used in aerospace and defense applications, these devices have more recently been used for precision seismology and in other research settings. In particular, mid-sized (~1 m-scale) laser gyros have been under development as tilt sensors to augment the adaptive active seismic isolation systems in terrestrial interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The most prevalent design is the 'active' gyroscope, in which the optical ring cavity used to measure the Sagnac degeneracy breaking is itself a laser resonator. In this article, we describe another topology: a 'passive' gyroscope, in which the sensing cavity is not itself a laser but is instead tracked using external laser beams. While subject to its own limitations, this design is free from the deleterious lock-in effects observed in active systems, and has the advantage that it can be constructed using commercially available components. We demonstrate that our device achieves comparable sensitivity to those of similarly sized active laser gyroscopes.

Thermal lensing in resonant optical interferometers such as those used for gravitational wave detection is a concern due to the negative impact on control signals and instrument sensitivity. In this paper we describe a method for monitoring the thermal state of such interferometers by probing the higher-order spatial mode resonances of the cavities within them. We demonstrate the use of this technique to measure changes in the advanced LIGO (aLIGO) input mode cleaner cavity geometry as a function of input power, and subsequently infer the optical absorption at the mirror surfaces at the level of 1 ppm per mirror. We also demonstrate the generation of a useful error signal for the thermal state of the aLIGO power recycling cavity by continuously tracking the first order spatial mode resonance frequency. Such an error signal could be used as an input to thermal compensation systems to maintain the interferometer cavity geometries in the presence of transients in circulating light power levels, thereby maintaining optimal sensitivity and maximizing the duty-cycle of the detectors.

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 Letter, we describe the first observation of parametric instability in a gravitational wave detector, and the means by which it has been removed as a barrier to progress.

It has been speculated that gravity could be an emergent phenomenon, with classical general relativity as an effective, macroscopic theory, valid only for classical systems at large temporal and spatial scales. As in classical continuum dynamics, the existence of underlying microscopic degrees of freedom may lead to macroscopic dissipative behaviors. With the hope that such dissipative behaviors of gravity could be revealed by carefully designed experiments in the laboratory, we consider a phenomenological model that adds dissipations to the gravitational field, much similar to frictions in solids and fluids. Constraints to such dissipative behavior can already be imposed by astrophysical observations and existing experiments, but mostly in lower frequencies. We propose a series of experiments working in higher frequency regimes, which may potentially put more stringent bounds on these models.

We report on the relative length fluctuation of two fixed-spacer Fabry?Pérot cavities with mirrors fabricated from silica/tantala dielectric coatings on fused silica substrates. By locking a laser to each cavity and reading out the beat note v = v_1? v_2 of the transmitted beams, we find that, for frequencies from 10 Hz to 1 kHz, the power spectral density of beat note fluctuation is S_v(f)=(0.5Hz) 2/f. By careful budgeting of noise sources contributing to the beat note, we find that our measurement is consistent with the fluctuation in this band being dominated by the Brownian noise of the mirror coatings. Fitting for the coating loss angle ?_c, we find it equal to 4 × 10 (?4). We then use a Bayesian analysis to combine our measurement with previous observations, and thereby extract estimates for the individual loss angles of the silica and tantala constituents of these coatings. With minor upgrades, the testbed described in this article can be used in the future to measure the length noise of cavities formed with novel mirror coating materials and geometries.

Ground-based interferometric gravitational wave observatories such as Advanced LIGO must isolate their optics from ground vibrations with suspension systems to meet their stringent noise requirements. These suspensions typically have very high quality-factor resonances that require active damping. The sensor noise associated with this damping is a potential significant contributor to the sensitivity of these interferometers. This paper introduces a novel scheme for suspension damping that isolates much of this noise and permits greater amounts of damping. It also decouples the damping feedback design from the interferometer control. The scheme works by invoking a change from a local coordinate frame associated with each suspension, to a coordinate frame aligned with the interferometric readout. In this way, degrees of freedom invisible to the readout can employ effective, but noisy damping. The degree of freedom measured by the readout is then damped using low noise interferometer signals, eliminating the need to use the usual noisy sensors. Simulated and experimental results validate the concepts presented in this paper.

Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors are complex instruments comprised of a Michelson interferometer enhanced by multiple coupled cavities. Active feedback control is required to operate these instruments and keep the cavities locked on resonance. The optical response is highly nonlinear until a good operating point is reached. The linear operating range is between 0.01% and 1% of a fringe for each degree of freedom. The resonance lock has to be achieved in all five degrees of freedom simultaneously, making the acquisition difficult. Furthermore, the cavity linewidth seen by the laser is only _(~1) Hz, which is four orders of magnitude smaller than the linewidth of the free running laser. The arm length stabilization system is a new technique used for arm cavity locking in Advanced LIGO. Together with a modulation technique utilizing third harmonics to lock the central Michelson interferometer, the Advanced LIGO detector has been successfully locked and brought to an operating point where detecting gravitational-waves becomes feasible.

Multiple lines of astrophysical evidence suggest that over one-quarter of the mass of the Universe takes the form of dark matter, with a density in our Solar System of roughly one hydrogen atom's mass per cubic metre. Most attempts to directly detect dark matter have focused on particles such as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) or axions. Enormous detectors searching for dark matter have been built. They are looking for signals such as tiny flashes of light from collisions between dark matter and liquid xenon, phonons created by collisions in germanium, or microwaves generated by axions in a resonant cavity. Yet so far, dark matter has passed through the Earth undetected. An alternative explanation is that dark matter acts more like a classical, spatially dependent field. Writing in Nature Physics, Andrei Derevianko and Maxim Pospelov now suggest searching for such a field using a world-wide network of atomic clocks to register any changes in the their ticking rate as the Earth passes through dark matter.

In order to expand the astrophysical reach of gravitational wave (GW) detectors, several interferometer topologies have been proposed, in the past, to evade the thermodynamic and quantum mechanical limits in future detectors. In this work, we make a systematic comparison among these topologies by considering their sensitivities and complexities. We numerically optimize their sensitivities by introducing a cost function that tries to maximize the broadband improvement over the sensitivity of current detectors. We find that frequency-dependent squeezed-light injection with a 100 m scale filter cavity yields a good broadband sensitivity, with low complexity, and good robustness against optical loss. This study gives us a guideline for the near-term experimental research programs in enhancing the performance of future GW detectors.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo recently completed searches for gravitational waves at their initial target sensitivities, and soon Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo will commence observations with even better capabilities. In the search for short-duration signals, such as coalescing compact binary inspirals or ?burst? events, noise transients can be problematic. Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors are highly complex instruments, and, based on the experience from the past, the data often contain a large number of noise transients that are not easily distinguishable from possible gravitational-wave signals. In order to perform a sensitive search for short-duration gravitational-wave signals it is important to identify these noise artifacts, and to ?veto? them. Here we describe such a veto, the bilinear-coupling veto, that makes use of an empirical model of the coupling of instrumental noise to the output strain channel of the interferometric gravitational-wave detector. In this method, we check whether the data from the output strain channel at the time of an apparent signal is consistent with the data from a bilinear combination of auxiliary channels. We discuss the results of the application of this veto to recent LIGO data, and its possible utility when used with data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo.

The 4 km LIGO interferometers seek to measure the gravitational radiation from cosmic explosions. In order to do so, their massive mirrors must meet several demanding specifications which are sometimes conflicting. I will described why the job is so challenging and how the challenges may be met.

Technologies, design aspects and recent progresses for future gravitational wave (GW) detectors are mentioned in this summary of the C4 session of the Amaldi 10 conference.

Gravitational-wave detection has been pursued relentlessly for over 40 years. With the imminent operation of a new generation of laser interferometers, it is expected that detections will become a common occurrence. The research into more ambitious detectors promises to allow the field to move beyond detection and into the realm of precision science using gravitational radiation. In this article, the state of art for the detectors is reviewed and an outlook for the coming decades is described.

The effects of residual amplitude modulation (RAM) in laser interferometers using heterodyne sensing can be substantial and difficult to mitigate. In this work, we analyze the effects of RAM on a complex laser interferometer used for gravitational wave detection. The RAM introduces unwanted offsets in the cavity length signals and thereby shifts the operating point of the optical cavities from the nominal point via feedback control. This shift causes variations in the sensing matrix, and leads to degradation in the performance of the precision noise subtraction scheme of the multiple-degree-of-freedom control system. In addition, such detuned optical cavities produce an optomechanical spring, which also perturbs the sensing matrix. We use our simulations to derive requirements on RAM for the Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) detectors, and show that the RAM expected in aLIGO will not limit its sensitivity.

We describe the angular sensing and control (ASC) of 4 km detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Enhanced LIGO, the culmination of the first generation LIGO detectors, operated between 2009 and 2010 with about 40 kW of laser power in the arm cavities. In this regime, radiation-pressure effects are significant and induce instabilities in the angular opto-mechanical transfer functions. Here we present and motivate the ASC design in this extreme case and present the results of its implementation in Enhanced LIGO. Highlights of the ASC performance are successful control of opto-mechanical torsional modes, relative mirror motions of <= 1×10 ?7  rad rms, and limited impact on in-band strain sensitivity.

Recent advances in micro- and nanofabrication techniques have led to corresponding improvement in the performance of optomechanical systems, which provide a promising avenue towards quantum-limited metrology and the study of quantum behavior in macroscopic mechanical objects. One major impediment to reaching the quantum regime is thermal excitation, which can be overcome for a sufficiently high mechanical quality factor Q. Here, we propose a method for increasing the effective Q of a mechanical resonator by stiffening it via the optical spring effect exhibited by linear optomechanical systems and show how the associated quantum-radiation-pressure noise can be evaded by sensing and feedback control. In a parameter regime that is attainable with current technology, this method allows for realistic quantum cavity optomechanics in a frequency band well below that which has been realized thus far.

We analyze the Brownian thermal noise of a multilayer dielectric coating used in high-precision optical measurements, including interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. We assume the coating material to be isotropic, and therefore study thermal noises arising from shear and bulk losses of the coating materials. We show that coating noise arises not only from layer thickness fluctuations, but also from fluctuations of the interface between the coating and substrate, driven by fluctuating shear stresses of the coating. Although thickness fluctuations of different layers are statistically independent, there exists a finite coherence between the layers and the substrate-coating interface. In addition, photoelastic coefficients of the thin layers (so far not accurately measured) further influence the thermal noise, although at a relatively low level. Taking into account uncertainties in material parameters, we show that significant uncertainties still exist in estimating coating Brownian noise.

Fluctuations in the local Newtonian gravitational field present a limit to high precision measurements, including searches for gravitational waves using laser interferometers. In this work, we present a model of this perturbing gravitational field and evaluate schemes to mitigate the effect by estimating and subtracting it from the interferometer data stream. Information about the Newtonian noise is obtained from simulated seismic data. The method is tested on causal as well as acausal implementations of noise subtraction. In both cases it is demonstrated that broadband mitigation factors close to 10 can be achieved removing Newtonian noise as a dominant noise contribution. The resulting improvement in the detector sensitivity will substantially enhance the detection rate of gravitational radiation from cosmological sources.

Using a network of seismometers and sets of optimal filters, we implemented a feed-forward control technique to minimize the seismic contribution to multiple interferometric degrees of freedom of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory interferometers. The filters are constructed by using the Levinson?Durbin recursion relation to approximate the optimal Wiener filter. By reducing the RMS of the interferometer feedback signals below ~10 Hz, we have improved the stability and duty cycle of the joint network of gravitational wave detectors. By suppressing the large control forces and mirror motions, we have dramatically reduced the rate of non-Gaussian transients in the gravitational wave signal stream.

Long-baseline laser interferometers used for gravitational-wave detection have proven to be very complicated to control. In order to have sufficient sensitivity to astrophysical gravitational waves, a set of multiple coupled optical cavities comprising the interferometer must be brought into resonance with the laser field. A set of multi-input, multi-output servos then lock these cavities into place via feedback control. This procedure, known as lock acquisition, has proven to be a vexing problem and has reduced greatly the reliability and duty factor of the past generation of laser interferometers. In this article, we describe a technique for bringing the interferometer from an uncontrolled state into resonance by using harmonically related external fields to provide a deterministic hierarchical control. This technique reduces the effect of the external seismic disturbances by 4 orders of magnitude and promises to greatly enhance the stability and reliability of the current generation of gravitational-wave detectors. The possibility for using multicolor techniques to overcome current quantum and thermal noise limits is also discussed.

Length and g-factor are fundamental parameters that characterize optical cavities. We developed a technique to measure these parameters in situ by determining the frequency spacing between the resonances of fundamental and spatial modes of an optical cavity. Two laser beams are injected into the cavity, and their relative frequency is scanned by a phase-lock loop, while the cavity is locked to either laser. The measurement of the amplitude of their beat note in transmission reveals the resonances of the longitudinal and the transverse modes of the cavity and their spacing. This method proves particularly useful to characterize complex optical systems, including very long and/or coupled optical cavities, as in gravitational-wave interferometers. This technique and the results of its application to the coupled cavities of a 40 m-long gravitational-wave interferometer prototype are presented here.

We report a bound on the relative frequency fluctuations in nonlinear second harmonic generation. A 1064nm Nd:YAG laser is used to read out the phase of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer while PPKTP, a nonlinear crystal, is placed in each arm to generate second harmonic light. By comparing the arm length difference of the Mach Zehnder as read out by the fundamental 1064 nm light, and its second harmonic at 532 nm, we can bound the excess frequency noise introduced in the harmonic generation process. We report an amplitude spectral density of frequency noise with total RMS frequency deviation of 3mHz and a minimum value of 20 μHz/Hz (1/2) over 250 seconds with a measurement bandwidth of 128 Hz, corresponding to an Allan deviation of 10 (?19) at 20 seconds.

Optical loss from scattered light could limit the performance of quantum-noise filter cavities being considered for an upgrade to the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) gravitational-wave detectors. This paper describes imaging scatterometer measurements of the large-angle scattered light from two high-quality sample optics, a high reflector and a beamsplitter. These optics are each superpolished fused silica substrates with silica:tantala dielectric coatings. They represent the current state-of-the art optical technology for use in filter cavities. We present angle-resolved scatter values and integrate these to estimate the total scatter over the measured angles. We find that the total integrated light scattered into larger angles can be as small as 4 ppm.

The two 4 km long gravitational wave detectors operated by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) were modified in 2008 to read out the gravitational wave channel using the DC readout form of homodyne detection and to include an optical filter cavity at the output of the detector. As part of the upgrade to Enhanced LIGO, these modifications replaced the radio-frequency (RF) heterodyne system used previously. We describe the motivations for and the implementation of DC readout and the output mode cleaner in Enhanced LIGO. We present characterizations of the system, including measurements and models of the couplings of the noises from the laser source to the gravitational wave readout channel. We show that noise couplings using DC readout are improved over those for RF readout, and we find that the achieved shot-noise-limited sensitivity is consistent with modeled results.

A fundamental limit to the sensitivity of optical interferometers is imposed by Brownian thermal fluctuations of the mirrors? surfaces. This thermal noise can be reduced by using larger beams which "average out" the random fluctuations of the surfaces. It has been proposed previously that wider, higher-order Laguerre-Gaussian modes can be used to exploit this effect. In this paper, we show that susceptibility to spatial imperfections of the mirrors? surfaces limits the effectiveness of this approach in interferometers used for gravitational-wave detection. Possible methods of reducing this susceptibility are also discussed.

We observed the effect of radiation pressure on the angular sensing and control system of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) interferometer?s core optics at LIGO Hanford Observatory. This is the first measurement of this effect in a complete gravitational-wave interferometer. Only one of the two angular modes survives with feedback control, because the other mode is suppressed when the control gain is sufficiently large. We developed a mathematical model to understand the physics of the system. This model matches well with the dynamics that we observe.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) operates a 40m prototype interferometer on the Caltech campus. The primary mission of the prototype is to serve as an experimental testbed for upgrades to the LIGO interferometers and for gaining experience with advanced interferometric techniques, including detuned resonant sideband extraction (i.e. signal recycling) and dc readout (optical homodyne detection). The former technique will be employed in Advanced LIGO, and the latter in both Enhanced and Advanced LIGO. Using dc readout for gravitational wave signal extraction has several technical advantages, including reduced laser and oscillator noise couplings as well as reduced shot noise, when compared to the traditional rf readout technique (optical heterodyne detection) currently in use in large-scale ground-based interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The Caltech 40m laboratory is currently prototyping a dc readout system for a fully suspended interferometric gravitational wave detector. The system includes an optical filter cavity at the interferometer's output port, and the associated controls and optics to ensure that the filter cavity is optimally coupled to the interferometer. We present the results of measurements to characterize noise couplings in rf and dc readout using this system.

The quantum nature of the electromagnetic field imposes a fundamental limit on the sensitivity of optical precision measurements such as spectroscopy, microscopy and interferometry. The so-called quantum limit is set by the zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, which constrain the precision with which optical signals can be measured. In the world of precision measurement, laser-interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, are the most sensitive position meters ever operated, capable of measuring distance changes of the order of 10- 18 m r.m.s. over kilometre separations caused by gravitational waves from astronomical sources. The sensitivity of currently operational and future gravitational-wave detectors is limited by quantum optical noise. Here, we demonstrate a 44% improvement in displacement sensitivity of a prototype gravitational-wave detector with suspended quasi-free mirrors at frequencies where the sensitivity is shot-noise-limited, by injecting a squeezed state of light. This demonstration is a critical step towards implementation of squeezing-enhancement in large-scale gravitational-wave detectors.

We report on the optical response of a suspended-mass detuned resonant sideband extraction (RSE) interferometer with power recycling. The purpose of the detuned RSE configuration is to manipulate and optimize the optical response of the interferometer to differential displacements (induced by gravitational waves) as a function of frequency, independently of other parameters of the interferometer. The design of our interferometer results in an optical gain with two peaks: an RSE optical resonance at around 4 kHz and a radiation pressure induced optical spring at around 41 Hz. We have developed a reliable procedure for acquiring lock and establishing the desired optical configuration. In this configuration, we have measured the optical response to differential displacement and found good agreement with predictions at both resonances and all other relevant frequencies. These results build confidence in both the theory and practical implementation of the more complex optical configuration being planned for Advanced LIGO.

The lock acquisition scheme for the Advanced LIGO optical configuration, which makes use of "resonant sideband extraction", is under investigation in the 40 meter prototype interferometer at Caltech. The 40m has a similar optical configuration to the one planned for Advanced LIGO which has 5 degrees of freedom for length control. So far we have succeeded in locking the 5 degrees of freedom routinely. The differential mode of arm cavities was locked in the same state as the final setup, and the peak of optical resonance was verified to be around 4 kHz. Currently, since an offset remains in the common mode of the arm cavities, another optical resonance can be seen in common mode optical gain.