A gravitational wave observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit

Abadie, J. et al. (2011) A gravitational wave observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit. Nature Physics, 7(12), pp. 962-965. (doi: 10.1038/nphys2083)

Abstract

Around the globe several observatories are seeking the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). These waves are predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity1 and are generated, for example, by black-hole binary systems2. Present GW detectors are Michelson-type kilometre-scale laser interferometers measuring the distance changes between mirrors suspended in vacuum. The sensitivity of these detectors at frequencies above several hundred hertz is limited by the vacuum (zero-point) fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. A quantum technology—the injection of squeezed light3—offers a solution to this problem. Here we demonstrate the squeezed-light enhancement of GEO 600, which will be the GW observatory operated by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration in its search for GWs for the next 3–4 years. GEO 600 now operates with its best ever sensitivity, which proves the usefulness of quantum entanglement and the qualification of squeezed light as a key technology for future GW astronomy.

• Item Type: Articles (Letter)
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Messenger, Dr Christopher and Beveridge, Miss Nicola and Bell, Dr Angus and Nawrodt, Dr Ronny and Hammond, Professor Giles and Hild, Professor Stefan and Barr, Dr Bryan and Sorazu Lucio, Dr Borja and Nelson, Mr John and Reid, Professor Stuart and Lawrie, Mr Craig and Edgar, Dr Matthew and Evans, Mr Keith and Robertson, Mr Neil and Gill, Mr Colin and Veitch, Dr John and Plissi, Dr Michael and Speirits, Dr Fiona and Heng, Professor Ik Siong and van Veggel, Dr Marielle and Newton, Dr Gavin and Torrie, Dr Calum and Graef, Dr Christian and Hendry, Professor Martin and Scott, Dr Jamie and Rowan, Professor Sheila and Kumar, Mr Rahul and Abernathy, Mr Matthew and Martin, Dr Iain and Gray, Dr Norman and Cumming, Dr Alan and Cunningham, Dr Liam and Bastarrika, Mr Mikel and Woan, Professor Graham and Hough, Professor James and Huttner, Dr Sabina and Campsie, Mr Paul and Bassiri, Mr Riccardo and Strain, Professor Kenneth and Jones, Mr Russell and Haughian, Dr Karen and Pitkin, Dr Matthew and Murray, Dr Peter
• Authors: Abadie, J., Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. D., Abernathy, M., Adams, C., Adhikari, R., Affeldt, C., Allen, B., Allen, G. S., Amador Ceron, E., Amariutei, D., Amin, R. S., Anderson, S. B., Anderson, W. G., Arai, K., Arain, M. A., Araya, M. C., Aston, S. M., Atkinson, D., Aufmuth, P., Aulbert, C., Aylott, B. E., Babak, S., Baker, P., Ballmer, S., Barker, D., Barr, B., Barriga, P., Barsotti, L., Barton, M. A., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Bastarrika, M., Batch, J., Bauchrowitz, J., Behnke, B., Bell, A.S., Belopolski, I., Benacquista, M., Berliner, J. M., Bertolini, A., Betzwieser, J., Beveridge, N., Beyersdorf, P. T., Bilenko, I. A., Billingsley, G., Birch, J., Biswas, R., Black, E., Blackburn, J. K., Blackburn, L., Blair, D., Bland, B., Bock, O., Bodiya, T. P., Bogan, C., Bondarescu, R., Bork, R., Born, M., Bose, S., Brady, P. R., Braginsky, V. B., Brau, J. E., Breyer, J., Bridges, D. O., Brinkmann, M., Britzger, M., Brooks, A. F., Brown, D. A., Brummitt, A., Buonanno, A., Burguet-Castell, J., Burmeister, O., Byer, R. L., Cadonati, L., Camp, J. B., Campsie, P., Cannizzo, J., Cannon, K., Cao, J., Capano, C. D., Caride, S., Caudill, S., Cavagliá, M., Cepeda, C., Chalermsongsak, T., Chalkley, E., Charlton, P., Chelkowski, S., Chen, Y., Christensen, N., Cho, H., Chua, S. S. Y., Chung, S., Chung, C. T. Y., Ciani, G., Clara, F., Clark, D. E., Clark, J., Clayton, J. H., Conte, R., Cook, D., Corbitt, T. R., Cordier, M., Cornish, N., Corsi, A., Costa, C. A., Coughlin, M., Couvares, P., Coward, D. M., Coyne, D. C., Creighton, J. D. E., Creighton, T. D., Cruise, A. M., Cumming, A., Cunningham, L., Cutler, R. M., Dahl, K., Danilishin, S. L., Dannenberg, R., Danzmann, K., Daudert, B., Daveloza, H., Davies, G., Daw, E. J., Dayanga, T., DeBra, D., Degallaix, J., Dent, T., Dergachev, V., DeRosa, R., DeSalvo, R., Dhurandhar, S., DiGuglielmo, J., Di Palma, I., Díaz, M., Donovan, F., Dooley, K. L., Dorsher, S., Drever, R. W. P., Driggers, J. C., Du, Z., Dumas, J.-C., Dwyer, S., Eberle, T., Edgar, M., Edwards, M., Effler, A., Ehrens, P., Engel, R., Etzel, T., Evans, K., Evans, M., Evans, T., Factourovich, M., Fairhurst, S., Fan, Y., Farr, B. F., Farr, W., Fazi, D., Fehrmann, H., Feldbaum, D., Finn, L. S., Fisher, R. P., Flanigan, M., Foley, S., Forsi, E., Fotopoulos, N., Frede, M., Frei, M., Frei, Z., Freise, A., Frey, R., Fricke, T. T., Friedrich, D., Fritschel, P., Frolov, V. V., Fulda, P. J., Fyffe, M., Ganija, M. R., Garcia, J., Garofoli, J. A., Geng, R., Gergely, L. Á., Gholami, I., Ghosh, S., Giaime, J. A., Giampanis, S., Giardina, K. D., Gill, C., Goetz, E., Goggin, L. M., González, G., Gorodetsky, M. L., Goßler, S., Graef, C., Grant, A., Gras, S., Gray, C., Gray, N., Greenhalgh, R. J. S., Gretarsson, A. M., Grosso, R., Grote, H., Grunewald, S., Guido, C., Gupta, R., Gustafson, E. K., Gustafson, R., Ha, T., Hage, B., Hallam, J. M., Hammer, D., Hammond, G., Hanks, J., Hanna, C., Hanson, J., Harms, J., Harry, G. M., Harry, I. W., Harstad, E. D., Hartman, M. T., Haughian, K., Hayama, K., Heefner, J., Heintze, M. C., Hendry, M.A., Heng, I.S., Heptonstall, A. W., Herrera, V., Hewitson, M., Hild, S., Hoak, D., Hodge, K. A., Holt, K., Hong, T., Hooper, S., Hosken, D. J., Hough, J., Howell, E. J., Hughey, B., Huynh-Dinh, T., Husa, S., Huttner, S.H., Ingram, D. R., Inta, R., Isogai, T., Ivanov, A., Izumi, K., Jacobson, M., Jang, H., Johnson, W. W., Jones, D. I., Jones, G., Jones, R., Ju, L., Kalmus, P., Kalogera, V., Kamaretsos, I., Kandhasamy, S., Kang, G., Kanner, J. B., Katsavounidis, E., Katzman, W., Kaufer, H., Kawabe, K., Kawamura, S., Kawazoe, F., Kells, W., Keppel, D. G., Keresztes, Z., Khalaidovski, A., Khalili, F. Y., Khazanov, E. A., Kim, B., Kim, C., Kim, D., Kim, H., Kim, K., Kim, N., Kim, Y.-M., King, P. J., Kinsey, M., Kinzel, D. L., Kissel, J. S., Klimenko, S., Kokeyama, K., Kondrashov, V., Kopparapu, R., Koranda, S., Korth, W. Z., Kozak, D., Kringel, V., Krishnamurthy, S., Krishnan, B., Kuehn, G., Kumar, R., Kwee, P., Lam, P. K., Landry, M., Lang, M., Lantz, B., Lastzka, N., Lawrie, C., Lazzarini, A., Leaci, P., Lee, C. H., Lee, H. M., Leindecker, N., Leong, J. R., Leonor, I., Li, J., Lindquist, P. E., Lockerbie, N. A., Lodhia, D., Lormand, M., Luan, J., Lubinski, M., Lück, H., Lundgren, A. P., Macdonald, E., Machenschalk, B., MacInnis, M., Macleod, D. M., Mageswaran, M., Mailand, K., Mandel, I., Mandic, V., Marandi, A., Márka, S., Márka, Z., Markosyan, A., Maros, E., Martin, I.W., Martin, R. M., Marx, J. N., Mason, K., Matichard, F., Matone, L., Matzner, R. A., Mavalvala, N., Mazzolo, G., McCarthy, R., McClelland, D. E., McGuire, S. C., McIntyre, G., McIver, J., McKechan, D. J. A., Meadors, G. D., Mehmet, M., Meier, T., Melatos, A., Melissinos, A. C., Mendell, G., Menendez, D., Mercer, R. A., Meshkov, S., Messenger, C., Meyer, M. S., Miao, H., Miller, J., Mitrofanov, V. P., Mitselmakher, G., Mittleman, R., Miyakawa, O., Moe, B., Moesta, P., Mohanty, S. D., Moraru, D., Moreno, G., Mori, T., Mossavi, K., Mow-Lowry, C. M., Mueller, C. L., Mueller, G., Mukherjee, S., Mullavey, A., Müller-Ebhardt, H., Munch, J., Murphy, D., Murray, P.G., Mytidis, A., Nash, T., Nawrodt, R., Necula, V., Nelson, J., Newton, G., Nishizawa, A., Nolting, D., Nuttall, L., O’Dell, J., O’Reilly, B., O’Shaughnessy, R., Ochsner, E., Oelker, E., Oh, J. J., Oh, S. H., Ogin, G. H., Oldenburg, R. G., Osthelder, C., Ott, C. D., Ottaway, D. J., Ottens, R. S., Overmier, H., Owen, B. J., Page, A., Pan, Y., Pankow, C., Papa, M. A., Ajith, P., Patel, P., Pedraza, M., Peiris, P., Pekowsky, L., Penn, S., Peralta, C., Perreca, A., Phelps, M., Pickenpack, M., Pinto, I. M., Pitkin, M., Pletsch, H. J., Plissi, M.V., Pöld, J., Postiglione, F., Predoi, V., Price, L. R., Prijatelj, M., Principe, M., Privitera, S., Prix, R., Prokhorov, L., Puncken, O., Quetschke, V., Raab, F. J., Radkins, H., Raffai, P., Rakhmanov, M., Ramet, C. R., Rankins, B., Mohapatra, S. R. P., Raymond, V., Redwine, K., Reed, C. M., Reed, T., Reid, S., Reitze, D. H., Riesen, R., Riles, K., Robertson, N.A., Robinson, C., Robinson, E. L., Roddy, S., Rodriguez, C., Rodruck, M., Rollins, J., Romano, J. D., Romie, J. H., Röver, C., Rowan, S., Rüdiger, A., Ryan, K., Ryll, H., Sainathan, P., Sakosky, M., Salemi, F., Samblowski, A., Sammut, L., Sancho de la Jordana, L., Sandberg, V., Sankar, S., Sannibale, V., Santamaría, L., Santiago-Prieto, I., Santostasi, G., Sathyaprakash, B. S., Sato, S., Saulson, P. R., Savage, R. L., Schilling, R., Schlamminger, S., Schnabel, R., Schofield, R. M. S., Schulz, B., Schutz, B. F., Schwinberg, P., Scott, J., Scott, S. M., Searle, A. C., Seifert, F., Sellers, D., Sengupta, A. S., Sergeev, A., Shaddock, D. 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• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Research Centre: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research
• Journal Name: Nature Physics
• ISSN: 1745-2473