CaltechAUTHORS
Published March 21, 2012 | Version public
Journal Article Metadata-only

DC readout experiment in Enhanced LIGO

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Louisiana State University
  • 2. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 4. ROR icon University of Florida
  • 5. ROR icon Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
  • 6. ROR icon Australian National University

Abstract

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.

Additional Information

© 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd. Received 13 October 2011, in final form 31 January 2012. Published 23 February 2012. TF thanks the National Science Foundation for support under grant PHY-0905184 and Caltech for support via the LIGO Visitors Program. The authors would like to thank Koji Arai, Hartmut Grote, David Shoemaker and Zach Korth for comments on this manuscript; and everyone who contributed to the Enhanced LIGO effort. LIGO was constructed by the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology with funding from the National Science Foundation and operates under cooperative agreement PHY-0757058. This paper has LIGO Document Number P1000009.

Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
29940
DOI
10.1088/0264-9381/29/6/065005
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20120403-065540150

Funding

NSF
PHY-0905184
NSF
PHY-0757058

Dates

Created
2012-04-03
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2022-07-12
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Physics Department
Other Numbering System Name
LIGO Document Number
Other Numbering System Identifier
P1000009