Characterization of a phase camera for the Virgo gravitational wave detector

Gravitational waves predicted by Einstein have been measured in a few observatories worldwide. These detectors are complex interferometers with sizes of kilometers. Misalignments and aberrations in their optical set-up can create higher-order modes in the laser beam. These higher-order mode effects should be compensated to improve the...

Experimental results of an innovative dynamic low-coherent interferometer for characterizing a gravitational wave detector

We present the experimental results of the proof of concept of a metrology instrument developed to characterize the cryogenic mirror of the Einstein Telescope (ET) prototype. ET is a proposed gravitational-wave observatory. The metrology instrument uses the principle of low-coherence interferometry to measure the local change in topology and...

The ultimate performance of the Rasnik 3-point alignment system

The Rasnik system is a 3-point optical displacement monitor with sub-nanometer precision. The CCD-Rasnik alignment system was developed in 1993 for monitoring the alignment of the muon chambers of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer at CERN. Since then, the development has continued as new CMOS imaging pixel chips became available. In this work the...

Design for interaction: Factorized Nyquist based control design applied to a Gravitational Wave detector

Gravitational Wave detectors require feedback control to control the length between the sensitive components of the detector. The degrees of freedom in the control system are inherently coupled and the level of interaction furthermore varies over time. A systematic control design approach for the feedback controllers is presented which...

Ultra low latency deep neural network inference for gravitational waves interferometer: *

Low latency Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) inference research is gaining more and more momentum for tasks such as speech and image classications. This is because CNNs have the ability to surpass human accuracy in classication of images. For improving the measurement setup of gravitational waves, low latency CNNs inference are researched. The...

Instruments for seismic isolation: Improving performance of advanced displacement and inertial sensors for active suppression of seismic noise in Gravitational Wave detectors

Laser interferometric Gravitational Wave telescopes are limited in sensitivity by seismic noise in the low frequency region (below a 10 Hz). The aim of this research is to improve performance of an advanced displacement sensor and an ultra-low noise inertial sensor, that can help measuring and correcting for seismically induced motion of the GW...

Exploring Gravitational Waves Recordings with Machine Learning Techniques

The study of Gravitational Waves (GWs) opened a new window of possibilities to improve our understanding of the Universe. GWs provide suitable astronomical messengers for studying events that were not possible before through electromagnetic radiation, or in other cases complementing their observations. Ground-based interferometers like LIGO have...

Light, the universe and everything–12 Herculean tasks for quantum cowboys and black diamond skiers

The Winter Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE) has been a seminal force in quantum optics and related areas since 1971. It is rather mind-boggling to recognize how the concepts presented at these conferences have transformed scientific understanding and human society. In January 2017, the participants of PQE were asked to...