Optical scattering measurements and implications on thermal noise in Gravitational Wave detectors test-mass coatings

Photographs of the LIGO Gravitational Wave detector mirrors illuminated by the standing beam were analyzed with an astronomical software tool designed to identify stars within images, which extracted hundreds of thousands of point-like scatterers uniformly distributed across the mirror surface, like...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics letters. A 2018-08, Vol.382 (33), p.2259-2264
Main Authors: Glover, Lamar, Goff, Michael, Patel, Jignesh, Pinto, Innocenzo, Principe, Maria, Sadecki, Travis, Savage, Richard, Villarama, Ethan, Arriaga, Eddy, Barragan, Erik, DeSalvo, Riccardo, Do, Eric, Fajardo, Cameron
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystallites
Dissipation
Gravitational waves
Quality factor
Scattering
Thermal noise
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Summary:Photographs of the LIGO Gravitational Wave detector mirrors illuminated by the standing beam were analyzed with an astronomical software tool designed to identify stars within images, which extracted hundreds of thousands of point-like scatterers uniformly distributed across the mirror surface, likely distributed through the depth of the coating layers. The sheer number of the observed scatterers implies a fundamental, thermodynamic origin during deposition or processing. These scatterers are a possible source of the mirror dissipation and thermal noise foreseen by V. Braginsky and Y. Levin, which limits the sensitivity of observatories to Gravitational Waves. This study may point the way towards the production of mirrors with reduced thermal noise and an increased detection range. •Astronomical software was repurposed to analyze images of a LIGO mirror.•Thousands of light scatterers were detected within the LIGO mirror coating layers.•The identified scatterers could prove to be source of thermal noise in LIGO system.
ISSN:0375-9601
1873-2429
DOI:10.1016/j.physleta.2017.05.050