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SYDP: Dissertation Prize Symposium

SYDP 1: AMOP Dissertation Prize Symposium

SYDP 1.3: Hauptvortrag

Montag, 8. März 2010, 17:30–18:00, F 107

Squeezed Light For Gravitational Wave Astronomy — •Henning Vahlbruch — Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Leibniz Universität Hannover und Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut), Callinstrasse 38, D-30167 Hannover

During the recent years an international network of interferometric gravitational wave (GW) detectors has been commissioned and searches for various classes of GW-signals are ongoing. Current detectors have reached astrophysically interesting sensitivity levels, however, extensive upgrades are aimed for the next decade bringing us into the era of gravitational wave astronomy. One approach to enhance the detector sensitivity is the injection of squeezed vacuum states of light replacing the ordinary quantum fluctuations entering the detector through its antisymmetric port. The application of squeezed light was proposed by Caves in 1985 but generation had become a reliable experimental technique not until the last 4 years. In this talk I present the first squeezed light source enabling the measurement of a almost 10 dB squeezed vacuum state within the entire detection bandwidth of ground-based GW-detectors (10 Hz - 10 kHz). The non-classical light source was assembled on a 1.5m² breadboard and includes a full coherent control system. The next upgrade of the German GEO600 GW-detector is scheduled for 2010 and will, in particular, involve the implementation of the non-classical light source presented here, allowing for the first sensitivity improvement of a GW-detector by the means of squeezed light.