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Deutsche Physikalische Gessellschaft IOP Institute of Physics

Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state

B Abbott1, R Abbott1, R Adhikari1, P Ajith2, B Allen2,3, G Allen4, R Amin5, S B Anderson1, W G Anderson3, M A Arain6, M Araya1, H Armandula1, P Armor3, Y Aso7, S Aston8, P Aufmuth9, C Aulbert2, S Babak10, S Ballmer1, H Bantilan11, B C Barish1, C Barker12, D Barker12, B Barr13, P Barriga14, M A Barton13, M Bastarrika13, K Bayer15, J Betzwieser1, P T Beyersdorf16, I A Bilenko17, G Billingsley1, R Biswas3, E Black1, K Blackburn1, L Blackburn15, D Blair14, B Bland12, T P Bodiya15, L Bogue18, R Bork1, V Boschi1, S Bose19, P R Brady3, V B Braginsky17, J E Brau20, M Brinkmann2, A Brooks1, D A Brown21, G Brunet15, A Bullington4, A Buonanno22, O Burmeister2, R L Byer4, L Cadonati23, G Cagnoli13, J B Camp24, J Cannizzo24, K Cannon1, J Cao15, L Cardenas1, T Casebolt4, G Castaldi25, C Cepeda1, E Chalkley13, P Charlton26, S Chatterji1, S Chelkowski8, Y Chen10,27, N Christensen11, D Clark4, J Clark13, T Cokelaer28, R Conte29, D Cook12, T Corbitt15,56, D Coyne1, J D E Creighton3, A Cumming13, L Cunningham13, R M Cutler8, J Dalrymple21, S Danilishin17, K Danzmann2,9, G Davies28, D DeBra4, J Degallaix10, M Degree4, V Dergachev30, S Desai31, R DeSalvo1, S Dhurandhar32, M Díaz33, J Dickson34, A Dietz28, F Donovan15, K L Dooley6, E E Doomes35, R W P Drever36, I Duke15, J-C Dumas14, R J Dupuis1, J G Dwyer7, C Echols1, A Effler12, P Ehrens1, E Espinoza1, T Etzel1, T Evans18, S Fairhurst28, Y Fan14, D Fazi1, H Fehrmann2, M M Fejer4, L S Finn31, K Flasch3, N Fotopoulos3, A Freise8, R Frey20, T Fricke1,37, P Fritschel15, V V Frolov18, M Fyffe18, J Garofoli12, I Gholami10, J A Giaime5,18, S Giampanis37, K D Giardina18, K Goda15, E Goetz30, L Goggin1, G González5, S Gossler2, R Gouaty5, A Grant13, S Gras14, C Gray12, M Gray34, R J S Greenhalgh38, A M Gretarsson39, F Grimaldi15, R Grosso33, H Grote2, S Grunewald10, M Guenther12, E K Gustafson1, R Gustafson30, B Hage9, J M Hallam8, D Hammer3, C Hanna5, J Hanson18, J Harms2, G Harry15, E Harstad20, K Hayama33, T Hayler38, J Heefner1, I S Heng13, M Hennessy4, A Heptonstall13, M Hewitson2, S Hild8, E Hirose21, D Hoak18, D Hosken40, J Hough13, S H Huttner13, D Ingram12, M Ito20, A Ivanov1, B Johnson12, W W Johnson5, D I Jones41, G Jones28, R Jones13, L Ju14, P Kalmus7, V Kalogera42, S Kamat7, J Kanner22, D Kasprzyk8, E Katsavounidis15, K Kawabe12, S Kawamura43, F Kawazoe43, W Kells1, D G Keppel1, F Ya Khalili17, R Khan7, E Khazanov44, C Kim42, P King1, J S Kissel5, S Klimenko6, K Kokeyama43, V Kondrashov1, R K Kopparapu31, D Kozak1, I Kozhevatov44, B Krishnan10, P Kwee9, P K Lam34, M Landry12, M M Lang31, B Lantz4, A Lazzarini1, M Lei1, N Leindecker4, V Leonhardt43, I Leonor20, K Libbrecht1, H Lin6, P Lindquist1, N A Lockerbie45, D Lodhia8, M Lormand18, P Lu4, M Lubinski12, A Lucianetti6, H Lück2,9, B Machenschalk2, M MacInnis15, M Mageswaran1, K Mailand1, V Mandic46, S Márka7, Z Márka7, A Markosyan4, J Markowitz15, E Maros1, I Martin13, R M Martin6, J N Marx1, K Mason15, F Matichard5, L Matone7, R Matzner47, N Mavalvala15, R McCarthy12, D E McClelland34, S C McGuire35, M McHugh48, G McIntyre1, G McIvor47, D McKechan28, K McKenzie34, T Meier9, A Melissinos37, G Mendell12, R A Mercer6, S Meshkov1, C J Messenger2, D Meyers1, H Miao14, J Miller1,13, J Minelli31, S Mitra32, V P Mitrofanov17, G Mitselmakher6, R Mittleman15, O Miyakawa1, B Moe3, S Mohanty33, G Moreno12, K Mossavi2, C Mow-Lowry34, G Mueller6, S Mukherjee33, H Mukhopadhyay32, H Müller-Ebhardt2, J Munch40, P Murray13, E Myers12, J Myers12, T Nash1, J Nelson13, G Newton13, A Nishizawa43, K Numata24, J O'Dell38, G Ogin1, B O'Reilly18, R O'Shaughnessy31, D J Ottaway15, R S Ottens6, H Overmier18, B J Owen31, Y Pan22, C Pankow6, M A Papa3,10, V Parameshwaraiah12, P Patel1, M Pedraza1, S Penn49, A Perreca8, T Petrie31, I M Pinto25, M Pitkin13, H J Pletsch2, M V Plissi13, F Postiglione29, M Principe25, R Prix2, V Quetschke6, F Raab12, D S Rabeling34, H Radkins12, N Rainer2, M Rakhmanov50, M Ramsunder31, H Rehbein2, S Reid13, D H Reitze6, R Riesen18, K Riles30, B Rivera12, N A Robertson1,13, C Robinson28, E L Robinson8, S Roddy18, A Rodriguez5, A M Rogan19, J Rollins7, J D Romano33, J Romie18, R Route4, S Rowan13, A Rüdiger2, L Ruet15, P Russell1, K Ryan12, S Sakata43, M Samidi1, L Sancho de la Jordana51, V Sandberg12, V Sannibale1, S Saraf52, P Sarin15, B S Sathyaprakash28, S Sato43, P R Saulson21, R Savage12, P Savov27, S W Schediwy14, R Schilling2, R Schnabel2, R Schofield20, B F Schutz10,28, P Schwinberg12, S M Scott34, A C Searle34, B Sears1, F Seifert2, D Sellers18, A S Sengupta1, P Shawhan22, D H Shoemaker15, A Sibley18, X Siemens3, D Sigg12, S Sinha4, A M Sintes10,51, B J J Slagmolen34, J Slutsky5, J R Smith21, M R Smith1, N D Smith15, K Somiya2,10, B Sorazu13, L C Stein15, A Stochino1, R Stone33, K A Strain13, D M Strom20, A Stuver18, T Z Summerscales53, K-X Sun4, M Sung5, P J Sutton28, H Takahashi10, D B Tanner6, R Taylor1, R Taylor13, J Thacker18, K A Thorne31, K S Thorne27, A Thüring9, K V Tokmakov13, C Torres18, C Torrie13, G Traylor18, M Trias51, W Tyler1, D Ugolini54, J Ulmen4, K Urbanek4, H Vahlbruch9, C Van Den Broeck28, M van der Sluys42, S Vass1, R Vaulin3, A Vecchio8, J Veitch8, P Veitch40, A Villar1, C Vorvick12, S P Vyatchanin17, S J Waldman1, L Wallace1, H Ward13, R Ward1, M Weinert2, A Weinstein1, R Weiss15, S Wen5, K Wette34, J T Whelan10, S E Whitcomb1, B F Whiting6, C Wilkinson12, P A Willems1, H R Williams31, L Williams6, B Willke2,9, I Wilmut38, W Winkler2, C C Wipf15, A G Wiseman3, G Woan13, R Wooley18, J Worden12, W Wu6, I Yakushin18, H Yamamoto1, Z Yan14, S Yoshida50, M Zanolin39, J Zhang30, L Zhang1, C Zhao14, N Zotov55, M Zucker15 and J Zweizig1 (LIGO Scientific Collaboration)

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We introduce a novel cooling technique capable of approaching the quantum ground state of a kilogram-scale system—an interferometric gravitational wave detector. The detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) operate within a factor of 10 of the standard quantum limit (SQL), providing a displacement sensitivity of 10−18 m in a 100 Hz band centered on 150 Hz. With a new feedback strategy, we dynamically shift the resonant frequency of a 2.7 kg pendulum mode to lie within this optimal band, where its effective temperature falls as low as 1.4 μK, and its occupation number reaches about 200 quanta. This work shows how the exquisite sensitivity necessary to detect gravitational waves can be made available to probe the validity of quantum mechanics on an enormous mass scale.


PACS

04.80.Nn Gravitational wave detectors and experiments

03.65.-w Quantum mechanics

07.60.Ly Interferometers

95.55.Ym Gravitational radiation detectors; mass spectrometers; and other instrumentation and techniques

Subjects

Instrumentation and measurement

Gravitation and cosmology

Quantum information and quantum mechanics

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 7 (July 2009)

Received 20 February 2009

Published 16 July 2009



  1. Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state

    B Abbott et al 2009 New J. Phys. 11 073032

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