State observers and Kalman filtering for high performance vibration isolation systems.

There is a strong scientific case for the study of gravitational waves at or below the lower end of current detection bands. To take advantage of this scientific benefit, future generations of ground based gravitational wave detectors will need to expand the limit of their detection bands towards lower frequencies. Seismic motion presents a major challenge at these frequencies and vibration isolation systems will play a crucial role in achieving the desired low-frequency sensitivity. A compact vibration isolation system designed to isolate in-vacuum optical benches for Advanced Virgo will be introduced and measurements on this system are used to present its performance. All high performance isolation systems employ an active feedback control system to reduce the residual motion of their suspended payloads. The development of novel control schemes is needed to improve the performance beyond what is currently feasible. Here, we present a multi-channel feedback approach that is novel to the field. It utilizes a linear quadratic regulator in combination with a Kalman state observer and is shown to provide effective suppression of residual motion of the suspended payload. The application of state observer based feedback control for vibration isolation will be demonstrated with measurement results from the Advanced Virgo optical bench suspension system.

A state observer for the Virgo inverted pendulum.

We report an application of Kalman filtering to the inverted pendulum (IP) of the Virgo gravitational wave interferometer. Using subspace method system identification techniques, we calculated a linear mechanical model of Virgo IP from experimental transfer functions. We then developed a Kalman filter, based on the obtained state space representation, that estimates from open loop time domain data, the state variables of the system. This allows the observation (and eventually control) of every resonance mode of the IP mechanical structure independently.

Directional limits on persistent gravitational waves using LIGO S5 science data.

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as stochastic backgrounds. We perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2-20×10(-50) strain(2) Hz(-1) and 5-35×10(-49) strain(2) Hz(-1) sr(-1) for pointlike and extended sources, respectively. The latter result is the first of its kind. We also set 90% C.L. limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets including Sco X-1, SN 1987A and the Galactic center as low as ≈7×10(-25) in the most sensitive frequency range near 160 Hz.

In-vacuum Faraday isolation remote tuning.

In-vacuum Faraday isolators (FIs) are used in gravitational wave interferometers to prevent the disturbance caused by light reflected back to the input port from the interferometer itself. The efficiency of the optical isolation is becoming more critical with the increase of laser input power. An in-vacuum FI, used in a gravitational wave experiment (Virgo), has a 20 mm clear aperture and is illuminated by an almost 20 W incoming beam, having a diameter of about 5 mm. When going in vacuum at 10(-6) mbar, a degradation of the isolation exceeding 10 dB was observed. A remotely controlled system using a motorized lambda=2 waveplate inserted between the first polarizer and the Faraday rotator has proven its capability to restore the optical isolation to a value close to the one set up in air.