The Advanced LIGO Photon Calibrators

Abstract

The two interferometers of the Laser Interferometry Gravitaional-wave Observatory (LIGO) recently detected gravitational waves from the mergers of binary black hole systems. Accurate calibration of the output of these detectors was crucial for the observation of these events, and the extraction of parameters of the sources. The principal tools used to calibrate the responses of the second-generation (Advanced) LIGO detectors to gravitational waves are systems based on radiation pressure and referred to as Photon Calibrators. These systems, which were completely redesigned for Advanced LIGO, include several significant upgrades that enable them to meet the calibration requirements of second-generation gravitational wave detectors in the new era of gravitational-wave astronomy. We report on the design, implementation, and operation of these Advanced LIGO Photon Calibrators that are currently providing fiducial displacements on the order of $10^{-18}$ m/$\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ with accuracy and precision of better than 1 %.

14 pages, 19 figures

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• Calibration of the Advanced LIGO detectors for the discovery of the binary black-hole merger GW150914
• Precise calibration of LIGO test mass actuators using photon radiation pressure
• Optimal Calibration Accuracy for Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by tracking and compensating for slow temporal variations
• Photon pressure induced test mass deformation in gravitational-wave detectors
• Accurate calibration of test mass displacement in the LIGO interferometers
• Reconstruction of the gravitational wave signal $h(t)$ during the Virgo science runs and independent validation with a photon calibrator

Cited by in corpus (62)

• GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• GW170814: A Three-Detector Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M${}_{\odot }$ Black Hole with a 2.6 M${}_{\odot }$ Compact Object
• GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
• GW190425: Observation of a Compact Binary Coalescence with Total Mass $\sim 3.4M_{\odot }$
• GW170608: Observation of a 19-solar-mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• Tests of General Relativity with the Binary Black Hole Signals from the LIGO-Virgo Catalog GWTC-1
• Tests of General Relativity with Binary Black Holes from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
• GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses
• A 2 per cent Hubble constant measurement from standard sirens within 5 years
• Sensitivity and Performance of the Advanced LIGO Detectors in the Third Observing Run
• Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Does the Black Hole Merger Rate Evolve with Redshift?
• Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a $2.5\text{-}4.5M_{\odot }$ Compact Object and a Neutron Star
• The electromagnetic counterparts of compact binary mergers
• Characterization of systematic error in Advanced LIGO calibration
• Identification and mitigation of narrow spectral artifacts that degrade searches for persistent gravitational waves in the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO
• Effects of waveform model systematics on the interpretation of GW150914
• Calibration Uncertainty for Advanced LIGO's First and Second Observing Runs
• Machine-learning non-stationary noise out of gravitational wave detectors
• Calibration of the Advanced LIGO detectors for the discovery of the binary black-hole merger GW150914
• Improving the Sensitivity of Advanced LIGO Using Noise Subtraction
• Squeezing the quantum noise of a gravitational-wave detector below the standard quantum limit
• Review of the Advanced LIGO gravitational wave observatories leading to observing run four
• Reconstructing the calibrated strain signal in the Advanced LIGO detectors
• Dark Sirens to Resolve the Hubble-Lemaître Tension
• Neutron Star Mergers and How to Study Them
• Validating gravitational-wave detections: The Advanced LIGO hardware injection system
• Unbiased Hubble constant estimation from binary neutron star mergers
• Constraining the Hubble constant to a precision of about 1% using multi-band dark standard siren detections
• LIGO Detector Characterization in the first half of the fourth Observing run
• First cryogenic test operation of underground km-scale gravitational-wave observatory KAGRA
• Uncertainty limits on neutron star radius measurements with gravitational waves
• Systematic uncertainty of standard sirens from the viewing angle of binary neutron star inspirals
• Possible Causes of False General Relativity Violations in Gravitational Wave Observations
• Gravitational-wave astronomy with a physical calibration model
• physiCal: A physical approach to the marginalization of LIGO calibration uncertainties
• Viewing angle of binary neutron star mergers
• The cosmological impact of future constraints on $H_0$ from gravitational-wave standard sirens
• Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by tracking and compensating for slow temporal variations
• Fiducial displacements with improved accuracy for the global network of gravitational wave detectors
• End benches scattered light modeling and subtraction in Advanced Virgo
• The Advanced Virgo Photon Calibrators
• Improving the absolute accuracy of the gravitational wave detectors by combining the photon pressure and gravity field calibrators
• Calibration Uncertainty's Impact on Gravitational-Wave Observations
• The potential role of binary neutron star merger afterglows in multimessenger cosmology
• Search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in the first part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run
• Calibrating the cosmic distance ladder using gravitational-wave observations
• Calibrating gravitational-wave detectors with GW170817
• Search for lensing signatures in the gravitational-wave observations from the first half of LIGO-Virgo's third observing run
• The Timing System of LIGO Discoveries
• Calibration of Advanced Virgo and reconstruction of detector strain h(t) during the Observing Run O3
• Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by using time-dependent filters to compensate for temporal variations
• Self-calibration of Networks of Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Effects of calibration uncertainties on the detection and parameter estimation of isotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds
• Development of advanced photon calibrator for Kamioka gravitational wave detector (KAGRA)
• A Pseudo Plane-wave Gravitational Calibrator for Gravitational Wave Observatories
• Quantum speed limit as a sensitive probe of Planck-scale effects
• High speed, high power 2D beam steering for mitigation of optomechanical parametric instability in gravitational wave detectors
• Photon Calibration Performance of KAGRA during the 4th Joint Observing Run (O4)
• Search for planetary-mass ultra-compact binaries using data from the first part of the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA fourth observing run