Higher-order Hermite-Gauss modes as a robust flat beam in interferometric gravitational wave detectors
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Paul Fulda; Anna C. Green; Liu Tao
- Source
- Physical Review D. 102
- Subject
- Physics
Hermite polynomials
010308 nuclear & particles physics
Gravitational wave
business.industry
Gauss
Detector
FOS: Physical sciences
Michelson interferometer
01 natural sciences
LIGO
law.invention
Interferometry
Optics
law
0103 physical sciences
Surface flatness
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
010306 general physics
business
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
- Language
- ISSN
- 2470-0029
2470-0010
Higher-order Laguerre-Gauss (LG) modes have previously been investigated as a candidate for reducing test-mass thermal noise in ground-based gravitational-wave detectors like Advanced LIGO. It has been shown however that LG modes' fragility against mirror surface figure imperfections limits their compatibility with the current state-of-the-art test masses. In this paper we explore the alternative of using higher-order Hermite-Gauss (HG) modes for thermal noise reduction, and show that with the deliberate addition of astigmatism they are orders of magnitude more robust against mirror surface distortions than LG modes of equivalent order. We present simulations of Advanced LIGO-like arm cavities with realistic mirror figures which can support HG$_{33}$ modes with average arm losses and contrast defects in a Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometer configuration which are well below the typical measured values in Advanced LIGO. This demonstrates that the mirror surface flatness errors will not be a limiting factor for the use of these modes in future gravitational-wave detectors.
9 pages, 11 figures, references order and typos corrected