Abstract
With the detection of gravitational waves (GWs), mankind has made its most precise distance measurement to date. This would not have been possible without a dramatic decoupling of all optical components of the gravitational wave detectors by using vibration isolation systems. In the first two observation runs (O1 and O2) Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo have seen ten binary black hole and one binary neutron star merger with an electromagnetic counterpart. After even more upgrades, GWs are detected on average once every 5 days in O3!
I will present Advanced Virgo's auxiliary optical bench suspension [1] and an inertial sensor designed to be able to measure te residual motion of the suspended bench [2]. Even better vibration isolation would allow the GW detectors to improve their sensitivity and therefore increase how far away we can ‘hear’ black holes and neutron stars collide. This aspect will be even more relevant for the next generation detectors such as Einstein Telescope (ET) for which a lower frequency cut-off ( < 2 Hz) of seismic noise has been envisaged. ET will employ cryogenics and since we will need improved inertial sensors, I will end with an idea for a sensor [3] that can exploit this cryogenic environment resulting in improved sensitivity.
[1] J.V. van Heijningen et al. CQG 36 075007 (2019)
[2] J.V. van Heijningen et al., IEEE SAS proc., pp 76-80 (2018)
[3] J.V. van Heijningen, arXiv:1909.12956, submitted to PRD (2019)
Speaker Bio
Born in ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, Joris finished his undergraduate and Master’s studies in Applied Physics at the Delft University of Technology in 2012. The M.Sc. thesis titled “Precision Improvement in Optical Alignment Systems of Linear Colliders” was performed at Nikhef. After a project at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/ Stanford University on Silicon Microstrip Detectors, Joris entered the field of Gravitational Waves by starting a PhD at the Nikhef in Amsterdam in 2013. Feeling privileged to have been given the opportunity to do research in the GW field during the first discoveries, he finished his PhD at the VU University in 2018. After having worked at Advanced Virgo on vibration isolation systems and advanced interferometric accelerometers, his next move was to the Gravity group at the University of Western Australia in April 2018.