Sensitivity and noise analysis of 4 km laser interferometric gravitational wave antennae

Around the world, efforts are underway to commission several kilometer-scale laser interferometers to detect gravitational radiation. In the United States, there are two collocated interferometers in Hanford, Washington and one interferometer in Livingston, Louisiana. Together, these three interferometers form the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The core of the work described in this thesis is the modeling and reduction of the noise in the interferometers which limits their ultimate sensitivity. A vital component of the noise reduction is the modeling, design, and implementation of [approximately]100 feedback control systems. The most critical of these systems are described and motivated. Although improvements are continuously being made to the stability and noise character of these detectors, several months of data have been collected. Various efforts are underway to search through these data for gravitational wave signals. Included here, is a description of a search made through the data for signals from the ringdown of the quasi-normal modes of Kerr black holes. In addition, several possible future improvements to the detectors are outlined.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Adhikari, Rana, 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rainer Weiss and Peter Fritschel.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/28646
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/28646

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28646