RESUMO
We report a reduction in motion for suspended seismic-isolation platforms in a gravitational wave detector prototype facility. We sense the distance between two seismic-isolation platforms with a suspension platform interferometer and the angular motion with two optical levers. Feedback control loops reduce the length changes between two platforms separated by [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] at [Formula: see text], and the angular motion of each platform is reduced to [Formula: see text] at [Formula: see text]. As a result, the length fluctuations in a suspended optical resonator on top of the platforms is reduced by three orders of magnitude. This result is of direct relevance to gravitational wave detectors that use similar suspended optics and seismic isolation platforms.
RESUMO
Ultrastable high-power laser systems are essential components of the long baseline interferometers that detected the first gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars. One way to further increase the sensitivity of current generation gravitational wave detectors (GWDs) is to increase the laser power injected into the interferometers. In this Letter, we describe and characterize a 72 W and a 114 W linearly polarized, single-frequency laser system at a wavelength of 1064 nm, each based on single-pass Nd:YVO4 power amplifiers. Both systems have low power and frequency noise and very high spatial purity with less than 10.7% and 2.9% higher order mode content, respectively. We demonstrate the simple integration of these amplifiers into the laser stabilization environment of operating GWDs and show stable low-noise operation of one of the amplifier systems in such an environment for more than 45 days.
RESUMO
This note points out corrections to typographical errors in the published version of the article [Opt. Lett.42, 755 (2017)OPLEDP0146-959210.1364/OL.42.000755].
RESUMO
The AEI 10 m Prototype interferometer is an experiment to investigate the standard quantum limit of interferometry and, in particular, its relevance in gravitational-wave detection. As such it has stringent requirements on the power stability of its high-power light source. In this Letter we present the power stabilization concept of the 35 W Nd:YAG laser system used in the AEI 10 m Prototype. With a shot-noise-limited multiphotodetector sensing scheme we achieved a relative power noise level of 1.8×10-9 Hz-1/2 in a frequency band of 100 Hz to 1 kHz. The limiting noise sources at lower and higher frequencies are analyzed, and possible improvements on the power noise sensing are discussed.
