Demonstration of interferometer enhancement through Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement

The recent series of gravitational-wave detections by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observatories have launched the new field of gravitational-wave astronomy. As the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors is limited by the quantum noise of light, concepts from quantum metrology have been adapted to increase the observational range. Since 2010, squeezed light with reduced quantum noise has been used to achieve improved sensitivity at signal frequencies above 100 Hz. However, 100-m-long optical filter resonators would be required to also improve the sensitivity at lower frequencies, adding significant cost and complexity. Here, we report a proof-of-principle set-up of an alternative concept that achieves the broadband noise reduction by using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entangled states instead. We show that the desired sensitivity improvement can then be obtained with the signal recycling resonator that is already part of current observatories, providing a viable alternative to high-cost filter cavities.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entangled beams are sent to a 2.5-m-long cavity mimicking the signal recycling cavity of a gravitational-wave detector. By controlling the wavelength detuning, frequency-dependent squeezed vacuum states were generated.