OzGrav

  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Mental Health and Wellbeing
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding opportunities >
      • Sponsorship request form
      • International Visitor funding program
      • Student and Postdoc funding
      • Carer grant
      • GWIC 3G Funding
      • Research Translation Seed Grants
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Annual Reports
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students >
      • Faces of OzGrav
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
    • How to write a research brief
  • Education & Outreach
    • Education and Public Outreach
    • Graphics and Videos
    • apps
  • Events
    • OzGrav-2
    • Upcoming and Past Events >
      • 2020 OzGrav Annual Retreat
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Newsletter
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Mental Health and Wellbeing
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding opportunities >
      • Sponsorship request form
      • International Visitor funding program
      • Student and Postdoc funding
      • Carer grant
      • GWIC 3G Funding
      • Research Translation Seed Grants
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Annual Reports
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students >
      • Faces of OzGrav
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
    • How to write a research brief
  • Education & Outreach
    • Education and Public Outreach
    • Graphics and Videos
    • apps
  • Events
    • OzGrav-2
    • Upcoming and Past Events >
      • 2020 OzGrav Annual Retreat
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Newsletter
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us

New research on optomechanical technology that can enhance gravitational-wave detectors

22/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Figure 1

​Gravitational wave detectors are extremely complex instruments of precision measurement. They use interference as the physical mechanism to measure passing gravitational waves (GWs)—ripples in space-time—from different astronomical sources and events, like two neutron stars merging. The passing wave signal gets encoded into a wave of light and is read-out after exiting the interferometer. The issue is that the signal is so weak that any movement from the optical components will degrade the signal strength. For example, the random motion of particles that make up the material called ‘thermal noise’.
 
In the design of GW detectors, ‘optomechanical’ cavities are used to enhance the signal from GW detectors. These cavities, or ‘resonators’, typically have two, moving-end mirrors which trap and amplify light. There is one problem however: the mirrors can move too much due to thermal noise! If we can minimise the thermal noise of these resonators, it will improve the GW sensitivity.  
 
The Double-End-Mirror-Sloshing (DEMS) cavity—shown in figure 1—is a special type of optomechanical cavity which consists of four mirrors, a transmitting sloshing mirror and a resonator which reflects light from both sides (double-end-mirror). Using the DEMS cavity, the resonator exhibits very low levels of thermal noise through a process called ‘optical dilution’, which works by trapping the resonator in a potential well using radiation pressure. This keeps the resonator tightly bound, so it’s not easily disturbed from the random thermal fluctuations.

Picture
Figure 2

In a study led by the OzGrav, researchers explain that, although the optical spring is not unique to the DEMS cavity, the troublesome impact of radiation pressure noise and anti-damping effects are circumvented in the DEMS cavity, but are unavoidable in a two-mirror cavity.
 
First author and OzGrav research assistant Parris Trahanas explains: ‘The key mechanism that allows the DEMS cavity these qualities is the transmissive sloshing mirror component—it turns the DEMS cavity into a coupled optical resonator, which is the optical equivalent of connecting two spring mass systems together with a third spring.’
 
The results in Figure 2 show the avoided crossing of the optical resonances which is characteristic of a coupled oscillator—this will be an extremely useful tool for GW detectors, but could be more broadly applied to any field requiring low thermal noise in mechanical resonators.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

         


    OzGrav News


    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016

    Categories

    All
    Event
    Media

      Keep up to date with ozgrav news and events

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
We acknowledge and pay respects to the Elders and Traditional Owners of the land on which our six Australian nodes stand

​© 2020   The ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational  Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
Banner images: An artist's impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.  Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL
Picture