MG12 - Talk detail
 

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 Participant 

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Abstract

A squeezed light source for the GEO 600 gravitational wave detector

Although the existence of gravitational waves has been predicted by Albert Einstein almost one century ago, a direct detection still remains one of the most challenging endeavors of modern experimental physics. Seeking to measure the effects of such a wave and thus an (almost) infinitesimally small distance variation, a worldwide network of interferometric detectors has been set up over the last decade; first measurements started in early 2005 with the detectors being continuously improved. Already nowadays the detector sensitivity is limited by quantum noise at some detection frequencies. A basic approach to reduce the latter and hence to increase the interferometer sensitivity is given by the application of squeezed states of the light field. My contribution will give a review of the previous, proof-of-principle work performed in table-top experiments and then discuss the status of the large-scale implementation of the techniques into the German-British gravitational wave detector GEO 600.

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