Hannover 2013 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 51: Precision measurements and metrology VI (with Q)

A 51.6: Talk

Friday, March 22, 2013, 15:15–15:30, E 001

Coating thermal noise interferometer — •Tobias Westphal and the AEI 10m Prototype team — Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert-Einstein-Institut) and Leibniz University Hannover

Coating thermal noise (CTN) is getting a more and more significant noise source for high precision experiments and metrology. It arises from mechanical losses in the dielectric coatings applied to mirrors to achieve high reflectivity. Deeper understanding and verification of its theory requires direct (off-resonant) observation.

The AEI 10 m Prototype facility is probably the best suited environment for this kind of experiment in a frequency range of special importance for earth bound gravitational wave detectors. A pre-isolated platform shows three to four orders of magnitude attenuated seismic noise inside ultra-high vacuum. Up to 10 W highly stabilized (frequency as well as amplitude) laser power at 1064 nm will be available for experiments.

In this talk the CTN- interferometer being at the transition from design to construction phase will be presented. The range solely limited by CTN is designed to reach from 10 Hz to about 50 kHz, limited by seismic noise at low frequencies and shot noise (photon counting noise) at high frequencies.