Optimal Design of Coatings for Mirrors of Gravitational Wave Detectors: Analytic Turbo Solution via Herpin Equivalent Layers

Development of Mirror Coatings for Gravitational Wave Detectors

The first detections of gravitational waves, GW150914 and GW151226, were associated with the coalescence of stellar mass black holes, heralding the opening of an entirely new way to observe the Universe. Many decades of development were invested to achieve the sensitivities required to observe gravitational waves, with peak strains associated with GW150914 at the level of 10−21. Gravitational w...

Direct Measurements of Spatial Homogeneity of Coating Mirrors Thermal Noise and non Periodic Coatings for Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors

Thermal noise from optical coatings in gravitational wave detectors.

Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. These waves are created by massive objects, like neutron stars or black holes, oscillating at speeds appreciable to the speed of light. The detectable effect on the Earth of these waves is extremely small, however, creating strains of the order of 10(-21). There are a number of basic physics experiments around the ...

Realization of low-loss mirrors with sub-nanometer flatness for future gravitational wave detectors

The second generation of gravitational wave detectors will aim at improving by an order of magnitude their sensitivity versus the present ones (LIGO and VIRGO). These detectors are based on long-baseline Michelson interferometer with high finesse Fabry-Perot cavity in the arms and have strong requirements on the mirrors quality. These large low-loss mirrors (340 mm in diameter, 200 mm thick) mu...

Simulation of Gravitational Wave Detectors

A simulation program which provides insight in the vibrational properties of resonant mass gravitational radiation antennas is developed from scratch. The requirements that are set necessitate the use of an explicit nite element kernel. Since the computational complexity of this kernel requires signi cant computing power, it is tailored for execution on parallel computer systems. After validati...