Syracuse University Gravitational Wave Group

Light scattered from these test masses can be both a limiting mechanism for optical power loss in the interferometers and a pernicious source of noise in the detector output. The Syracuse University Gravitational Wave Group is constructing a photographic scatterometer to examine the light scattered by LIGO optics. The experiment will comprise a half-watt 1064-nm continuous wave laser shone onto a mirror sample, and a high-quality astronomical CCD camera to image the scattered light at off-angles. To ensure clean optics, the experiment will be conducted in a cleanroom environment.

In October 2007, LIGO completed its fifth science run known as S5. The data collected by the three LIGO detectors during this nearly two year long data run may contain the first recorded signals of gravitational waves. Since the construction of the initial LIGO detectors there have been great advances in interferometry techniques, lasers and materials sciences. The next generation of LIGO detectors, known as Advanced LIGO, will incorporate many of these advances. Advanced LIGO is expected to start obervations in the next decade with an improvement in strain amplitude sensitivity by a factor of ten or more.

Some of the new technologies developed for Advanced LIGO are ready for use now, while others will need to be fabricated over the coming years. The inital LIGO detectors are now being upgraded with these technologies, as well as other improvements to create the Enhanced LIGO detectors. Enhanced LIGO is expected to be factor of two or three times more sensitive that the initial LIGO detctors. This improvement in amplitude strain sensitivity corresponds to a factor of 27 increase of astronomical reach. Enhanced LIGO will then take data in another extended run, called S6, with a similarly improved detection rate over S5.