Point absorbers in Advanced LIGO.

Small, highly absorbing points are randomly present on the surfaces of the main interferometer optics in Advanced LIGO. The resulting nanometer scale thermo-elastic deformations and substrate lenses from these micron-scale absorbers significantly reduce the sensitivity of the interferometer directly though a reduction in the power-recycling gain and indirect interactions with the feedback control system. We review the expected surface deformation from point absorbers and provide a pedagogical description of the impact on power buildup in second generation gravitational wave detectors (dual-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers). This analysis predicts that the power-dependent reduction in interferometer performance will significantly degrade maximum stored power by up to 50% and, hence, limit GW sensitivity, but it suggests system wide corrections that can be implemented in current and future GW detectors. This is particularly pressing given that future GW detectors call for an order of magnitude more stored power than currently used in Advanced LIGO in Observing Run 3. We briefly review strategies to mitigate the effects of point absorbers in current and future GW wave detectors to maximize the success of these enterprises.

First Demonstration of Electrostatic Damping of Parametric Instability at Advanced LIGO.

Interferometric gravitational wave detectors operate with high optical power in their arms in order to achieve high shot-noise limited strain sensitivity. A significant limitation to increasing the optical power is the phenomenon of three-mode parametric instabilities, in which the laser field in the arm cavities is scattered into higher-order optical modes by acoustic modes of the cavity mirrors. The optical modes can further drive the acoustic modes via radiation pressure, potentially producing an exponential buildup. One proposed technique to stabilize parametric instability is active damping of acoustic modes. We report here the first demonstration of damping a parametrically unstable mode using active feedback forces on the cavity mirror. A 15 538 Hz mode that grew exponentially with a time constant of 182 sec was damped using electrostatic actuation, with a resulting decay time constant of 23 sec. An average control force of 0.03 nN was required to maintain the acoustic mode at its minimum amplitude.

Multicolor cavity metrology.

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.

In situ measurement of absorption in high-power interferometers by using beam diameter measurements.

We present a simple technique to make in situ measurements of the absorption in the optics of high-power laser interferometers. The measurement is particularly useful to those commissioning large-scale high power optical systems.