A new quantum speed-meter interferometer: measuring speed to search for intermediate mass black holes

• 来源期刊: 光：科学与应用（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2018,（4）
• 页码范围: 95-103
• 页数: 9页
• 语种: 英文
• DOI: 10.1038/s41377-018-0004-2

摘要

The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GW) by Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) has impressively launched the novel field of gravitational astronomy and allowed us to glimpse exciting objects about which we could previously only speculate.Further sensitivity improvements at the low-frequency end of the detection band of future GW observatories must rely on quantum non-demolition (QND) methods to suppress fundamental quantum fluctuations of the light fields used to readout the GW signal.Here we present a novel concept of how to turn a conventional Michelson interferometer into a QND speed-meter interferometer with coherently suppressed quantum back-action noise.We use two orthogonal polarizations of light and an optical circulator to couple them.We carry out a detailed analysis of how imperfections and optical loss influence the achievable sensitivity.We find that the proposed configuration significantly enhances the low-frequency sensitivity and increases the observable event rate of binary black-hole coalescences in the range of 102-1O3M⊙ by a factor of up to ～300.