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The Ninth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

QUANTUM LOCKING OF MIRRORS IN INTERFEROMETRIC MEASUREMENTS

A. Heidmann, Jean-Michel Courty, M. Pinard

Published Feb 1, 2006• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss the use of active control to reduce mirrors position fluctuations at the quantum level. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with an optomechanical sensor based on an high-finesse optical cavity, and corrected by a feedback loop. We show that this approach can be extended to lock the mirror motion at the quantum level and we propose to use this quantum locking technique to reduce the noise in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors. We analyze the back-action effects of the optomechanical sensor and show that quantum limits can be transferred from the sensor measurement to the interferometric one. This simple technique allows one to suppress the quantum effects of radiation pressure in the interferometer and to greatly enhance its sensitivity. The effect is furthermore insensitive to losses in the interferometer.

DOI
10.1142/9789812704030_0255

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We discuss the use of active control to reduce mirrors position fluctuations at the quantum level. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with an optomechanical sensor based on an high-finesse optical cavity, and corrected by a feedback loop. We show that this approach can be extended to lock the mirror motion at the quantum level and we propose to use this quantum locking technique to reduce the noise in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors. We analyze the back-action effects of the optomechanical sensor and show that quantum limits can be transferred from the sensor measurement to the interferometric one. This simple technique allows one to suppress the quantum effects of radiation pressure in the interferometer and to greatly enhance its sensitivity. The effect is furthermore insensitive to losses in the interferometer.
We discuss the use of active control to reduce mirrors position fluctuations at the quantum level. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with an optomechanical sensor based on an high-finesse optical cavity, and corrected by a feedback loop. We show that this approach can be extended to lock the mirror motion at the quantum level and we propose to use this quantum locking technique to reduce the noise in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors. We analyze the back-action effects of the optomechanical sensor and show that quantum limits can be transferred from the sensor measurement to the interferometric one. This simple technique allows one to suppress the quantum effects of radiation pressure in the interferometer and to greatly enhance its sensitivity. The effect is furthermore insensitive to losses in the interferometer.
The sensitivity in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-wave detectors is ultimately limited by quantum noise of light. We discuss the use of feedback mechanisms to reduce the quantum effects of radiation pressure. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with an optomechanical sensor based on a high-finesse cavity, and reduced by a feedback loop. We show that this technique can be extended to lock the mirror at the quantum level. In gravitational-waves interferometers with Fabry-Perot cavities in each arms, it is even possible to use a single feedback mechanism to lock one cavity mirror on the other. This quantum locking greatly improves the sensitivity of the interferometric measurement. It is furthermore insensitive to imperfections such as losses in the interferometer.
The sensitivity in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-wave detectors is ultimately limited by quantum noise of light. We discuss the use of feedback mechanisms to reduce the quantum effects of radiation pressure. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with anoptomechanical sensor based on a high-finesse cavity, and reduced by a feedback loop. We show that this technique can be extended to lock the mirror at the quantum level. In gravitational-waves interferometers with Fabry-Perot cavities in each arms, it is even possible to use a single feedback mechanism to lock one cavity mirror on the other. This quantum locking greatly improves the sensitivity of the interferometric measurement. It is furthermore insensitive to imperfections such as losses in the interferometer.
Radiation pressure exerted by light in interferometric measurements is responsible for displacements of mirrors which appear as an additional back-action noise and limit the sensitivity of the measurement. We experimentally study these effects by monitoring in a very high-finesse optical cavity the displacements of a mirror with a sensitivity at the 10-20m/√Hz level. This unique sensitivity is a step towards the first observation of the fundamental quantum effects of radiation pressure and the resulting standard quantum limit in interferometric measurements. Our experiment may become a powerful facility to test quantum noise reduction schemes, and we already have demonstrated radiation-pressure induced correlations between two optical beams sent into the same moving mirror cavity. Our scheme can be extended down to the quantum level and has applications both in high-sensitivity measurements and in quantum optics.
We study the quantum limits in an optomechanical sensor based on a detuned high-finesse cavity with a movable mirror. We show that the radiation pressure exerted on the mirror by the light in the detuned cavity induces a modification of the mirror dynamics and makes the mirror motion sensitive to the signal. This leads to an amplification of the signal by the mirror dynamics, and to an improvement of the sensor sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit, up to an ultimate quantum limit only related to the mechanical dissipation of the mirror. This improvement is somewhat similar to the one predicted in detuned signal-recycled gravitational-wave interferometers, and makes a high-finesse cavity a model system to test these quantum effects.