A new quantum speed-meter interferometer: measuring speed to search for intermediate mass black holesa

Stefan L. Danilishin*, Eugene Knyazev, Nikita V. Voronchev, Farid Ya. Khalili, Christian Graf, Sebastian Steinlechner, Jan-Simon Hennig, Stefan Hild

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GW) by Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) has impressively launched the novel field of gravitational astronomy and allowed us to glimpse exciting objects about which we could previously only speculate. Further sensitivity improvements at the low-frequency end of the detection band of future GW observatories must rely on quantum non-demolition (QND) methods to suppress fundamental quantum fluctuations of the light fields used to readout the GW signal. Here we present a novel concept of how to turn a conventional Michelson interferometer into a QND speed-meter interferometer with coherently suppressed quantum back-action noise. We use two orthogonal polarizations of light and an optical circulator to couple them. We carry out a detailed analysis of how imperfections and optical loss influence the achievable sensitivity. We find that the proposed configuration significantly enhances the low-frequency sensitivity and increases the observable event rate of binary black-hole coalescences in the range of 10(2) - 10(3) M-circle dot by a factor of up to similar to 300.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1
Number of pages9
JournalLight: Science & Applications
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 May 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • NOISE

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