David Blair, Li Ju, and Yiqiu Ma
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198828143
- eISBN:
- 9780191866920
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198828143.003.0002
- Subject:
- Physics, Atomic, Laser, and Optical Physics
This chapter reviews the 40-year history that led to the first detection of gravitational waves, and goes on to outline techniques which will allow the detectors to be substantially improved. ...
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This chapter reviews the 40-year history that led to the first detection of gravitational waves, and goes on to outline techniques which will allow the detectors to be substantially improved. Following a review of the gravitational wave spectrum and the early attempts at detection, it emphasizes the theme of optomechanics, and the underlying physics of parametric transducers, which creates a connection between early resonant bar detectors and modern interferometers and techniques for enhancing their sensitivity. Developments are presented in an historical context, while themes and connections between earlier and later work are emphasized.Less
This chapter reviews the 40-year history that led to the first detection of gravitational waves, and goes on to outline techniques which will allow the detectors to be substantially improved. Following a review of the gravitational wave spectrum and the early attempts at detection, it emphasizes the theme of optomechanics, and the underlying physics of parametric transducers, which creates a connection between early resonant bar detectors and modern interferometers and techniques for enhancing their sensitivity. Developments are presented in an historical context, while themes and connections between earlier and later work are emphasized.
John W. Moffat
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190650728
- eISBN:
- 9780197517383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190650728.003.0007
- Subject:
- Physics, Particle Physics / Astrophysics / Cosmology
At a press conference on February 11, 2016, David Reitz, LIGO Executive Director, announced, “We did it!” They detected gravitational waves for the first time. Both LIGO sites, in Washington state ...
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At a press conference on February 11, 2016, David Reitz, LIGO Executive Director, announced, “We did it!” They detected gravitational waves for the first time. Both LIGO sites, in Washington state and Louisiana, registered the incoming gravitational waves from two black holes colliding and merging far away. Over the following months, more mergers were detected. Gravitational waves are caused by the acceleration of a massive object, which stretches and compresses spacetime in a wave-like motion that is incredibly small and difficult to detect. Numerical relativity research over decades has produced over a quarter of a million template solutions of Einstein’s equations. The best template fit to the wave form data identifies the masses and spins of the two merging black holes. Much of this chapter describes the technology of the LIGO apparatus. On October 3, 2017, Barish, Thorne, and Weiss, the founders of LIGO, received the Nobel Prize for Physics.Less
At a press conference on February 11, 2016, David Reitz, LIGO Executive Director, announced, “We did it!” They detected gravitational waves for the first time. Both LIGO sites, in Washington state and Louisiana, registered the incoming gravitational waves from two black holes colliding and merging far away. Over the following months, more mergers were detected. Gravitational waves are caused by the acceleration of a massive object, which stretches and compresses spacetime in a wave-like motion that is incredibly small and difficult to detect. Numerical relativity research over decades has produced over a quarter of a million template solutions of Einstein’s equations. The best template fit to the wave form data identifies the masses and spins of the two merging black holes. Much of this chapter describes the technology of the LIGO apparatus. On October 3, 2017, Barish, Thorne, and Weiss, the founders of LIGO, received the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Harry Collins
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226052298
- eISBN:
- 9780226052328
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226052328.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
How assessment of the Big Dog signal can be analysed in terms of evidential culture and how it is affected by past, present and future
How assessment of the Big Dog signal can be analysed in terms of evidential culture and how it is affected by past, present and future
Pierre-François Cohadon, Jack Harris, Florian Marquardt, and Leticia Cugliandolo (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198828143
- eISBN:
- 9780191866920
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198828143.001.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Atomic, Laser, and Optical Physics
The Les Houches Summer School 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a ...
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The Les Houches Summer School 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a wide range of topics. Modern quantum optomechanics was born in the late 70s in the framework of gravitational wave interferometry, initially focusing on the quantum limits of displacement measurements. Carlton Caves, Vladimir Braginsky, and others realized that the sensitivity of the anticipated large-scale gravitational-wave interferometers (GWI) was fundamentally limited by the quantum fluctuations of the measurement laser beam. After tremendous experimental progress, the sensitivity of the upcoming next generation of GWI will effectively be limited by quantum noise. In this way, quantum-optomechanical effects will directly affect the operation of what is arguably the world’s most impressive precision experiment. However, optomechanics has also gained a life of its own with a focus on the quantum aspects of moving mirrors. Laser light can be used to cool mechanical resonators well below the temperature of their environment. After proof-of-principle demonstrations of this cooling in 2006, a number of systems were used as the field gradually merged with its condensed matter cousin (nanomechanical systems) to try to reach the mechanical quantum ground state, eventually demonstrated in 2010 by pure cryogenic techniques and a year later by a combination of cryogenic and radiation-pressure cooling. The book covers all aspects—historical, theoretical, experimental—of the field, with its applications to quantum measurement, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. Essential reading for any researcher in the field.Less
The Les Houches Summer School 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a wide range of topics. Modern quantum optomechanics was born in the late 70s in the framework of gravitational wave interferometry, initially focusing on the quantum limits of displacement measurements. Carlton Caves, Vladimir Braginsky, and others realized that the sensitivity of the anticipated large-scale gravitational-wave interferometers (GWI) was fundamentally limited by the quantum fluctuations of the measurement laser beam. After tremendous experimental progress, the sensitivity of the upcoming next generation of GWI will effectively be limited by quantum noise. In this way, quantum-optomechanical effects will directly affect the operation of what is arguably the world’s most impressive precision experiment. However, optomechanics has also gained a life of its own with a focus on the quantum aspects of moving mirrors. Laser light can be used to cool mechanical resonators well below the temperature of their environment. After proof-of-principle demonstrations of this cooling in 2006, a number of systems were used as the field gradually merged with its condensed matter cousin (nanomechanical systems) to try to reach the mechanical quantum ground state, eventually demonstrated in 2010 by pure cryogenic techniques and a year later by a combination of cryogenic and radiation-pressure cooling. The book covers all aspects—historical, theoretical, experimental—of the field, with its applications to quantum measurement, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. Essential reading for any researcher in the field.
