Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 4: Solids at Low Temperature - Materials

TT 4.5: Talk

Monday, March 26, 2007, 12:30–12:45, H18

Relaxation mechanisms in low mechanical loss materials for interferometric gravitational wave detectors occurring at low temperatures — •Anja Zimmer¹, Ronny Nawrodt¹, Daniel Heinert¹, Christian Schwarz¹, Matthias Hudl¹, Wolfgang Vodel¹, Andreas Tünnermann², and Paul Seidel¹ — ¹Institut für Festkörperphysik, FSU Jena, Helmholtzweg 5, 07743 Jena — ²Institut für Angewandte Physik, FSU Jena, Albert-Einstein-Straße 15, 07745 Jena

Interferometric gravitational wave detectors are highly sensitive instruments. To reduce the thermal noise of their optical components the operating temperature could be lowered which calls for materials offering low mechanical losses at these cryogenic temperatures. Therefore, systematic measurements have been done in a high precision experimental setup providing the ability to observe losses of at least 10⁻⁹ at the resonant frequencies of the samples in the temperature range of 5 to 300 K. Relaxation mechanisms leading to the mechanical losses are discussed for different materials.

This work was supported by the DFG under contract SFB Transregio 7.