The A+ upgrade:Expanding the Advanced LIGO Horizon
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Planned Impact
The consortium involved in this capital proposal has a strong and extensive track record in working with industry, in public outreach and schoolteacher CPD, which will continue throughout and beyond the construction period. Beneficiaries will include the optics industry e.g. companies such as Gooch and Housego - enhancing capability in the area of manufacture of optical components, and such as Helia Photonics via development of low loss optical coatings. Beneficiaries will also include those working in the sectors of energy and security via the application of MEMS gravimeters. The consortium has transferred technical knowledge and will further do so to help company competitiveness and success, all feeding back into the UK economy. The UK economy will further benefit through the spinning off of new companies arising from the research or licensing out of the technology being developed.
We anticipate research developments, spinning off from the gravitational wave work to contribute to the grand challenge areas of health and wellbeing via developments of software algorithms which can help with removal of artifacts in scanning medical imaging devices and in the development of hardware which can lead to the differentiation of a variety of stem cells with major implications for medicine. More globally, as a spin-off from the gravitational waves work at Cardiff a Data Innovation Institute has been established to conduct fundamental research into the aspects of managing, analysing and interpreting massive volumes of textual and numerical information. This will benefit projects in a wide-ranging spectrum of disciplines including social, biological, life and engineering sciences, e.g. in the biological and life sciences by extracting information from data sets without compromising privacy and confidentiality, and interpreting large data sets into reliable and understandable mathematical models.
Public outreach involving television, radio, science festivals, masterclasses and public lectures feature strongly in our present and proposed programmes and the legacy of the effort we have devoted to celebrate the international year of light - such as the development of a laser harp - fit well with the wider public outreach work we undertake in collaboration with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration on the physics of neutron stars, black holes and the Universe as a whole. Working with the Scottish government and Education Scotland members of the consortium will build on previous work contributing strongly to the curriculum for physics in Scotland by extending provision of CPD for schoolteachers in Scotland, producing videos and other material helping them to tackle the challenges introduced by the more interdisciplinary nature of the new school qualifications, and this support is very transportable to be used throughout the UK. The wide range of impact provided by the scale of our programme is excellent for the training of early career researchers and graduate students and we aim to ensure that all our young scientists have experience in these areas, enabling them to have access to a wide range of career opportunities.
We anticipate research developments, spinning off from the gravitational wave work to contribute to the grand challenge areas of health and wellbeing via developments of software algorithms which can help with removal of artifacts in scanning medical imaging devices and in the development of hardware which can lead to the differentiation of a variety of stem cells with major implications for medicine. More globally, as a spin-off from the gravitational waves work at Cardiff a Data Innovation Institute has been established to conduct fundamental research into the aspects of managing, analysing and interpreting massive volumes of textual and numerical information. This will benefit projects in a wide-ranging spectrum of disciplines including social, biological, life and engineering sciences, e.g. in the biological and life sciences by extracting information from data sets without compromising privacy and confidentiality, and interpreting large data sets into reliable and understandable mathematical models.
Public outreach involving television, radio, science festivals, masterclasses and public lectures feature strongly in our present and proposed programmes and the legacy of the effort we have devoted to celebrate the international year of light - such as the development of a laser harp - fit well with the wider public outreach work we undertake in collaboration with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration on the physics of neutron stars, black holes and the Universe as a whole. Working with the Scottish government and Education Scotland members of the consortium will build on previous work contributing strongly to the curriculum for physics in Scotland by extending provision of CPD for schoolteachers in Scotland, producing videos and other material helping them to tackle the challenges introduced by the more interdisciplinary nature of the new school qualifications, and this support is very transportable to be used throughout the UK. The wide range of impact provided by the scale of our programme is excellent for the training of early career researchers and graduate students and we aim to ensure that all our young scientists have experience in these areas, enabling them to have access to a wide range of career opportunities.
Publications
Ubhi A
(2022)
Active platform stabilization with a 6D seismometer
in Applied Physics Letters
Adhikari R
(2020)
A cryogenic silicon interferometer for gravitational-wave detection
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Utina A
(2022)
ETpathfinder: a cryogenic testbed for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Mow-Lowry C
(2019)
A 6D interferometric inertial isolation system
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Yu H
(2020)
Quantum correlations between light and the kilogram-mass mirrors of LIGO.
in Nature
Smetana J
(2022)
Compact Michelson Interferometers with Subpicometer Sensitivity
in Physical Review Applied
Abbott R
(2021)
Tests of general relativity with binary black holes from the second LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalog
in Physical Review D
Wang C
(2022)
Boosting the sensitivity of high-frequency gravitational wave detectors using P T -symmetry
in Physical Review D
Abbott R
(2021)
Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's first three observing runs
in Physical Review D
Zhang T
(2020)
Quantum squeezing schemes for heterodyne readout
in Physical Review D
Description | Birmingham-Beijing Normal University Instrumentation Fund |
Amount | £269,638 (GBP) |
Organisation | Beijing Normal University |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | China |
Start | 03/2020 |
End | 12/2020 |
Title | Interferometric damping of suspended optics |
Description | We developed control filters capable of improving the damping and control of the proposed beamsplitter suspension upgrade for Advanced LIGO. The improvements capitalise on the excellent noise performance of our compact interferometric sensors. They show: 1. Reduced ringdown time, observed through the step-response of the damped suspension model 2. Identical noise performance. The improvements in dynamics do not compromise noise injection. 3. Substantially reduced RMS motion. This will linearise the observatory readout and reduce noise couplings. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | We demonstrated the applicability and performance increase of novel hardware. In particular, we were able to create multiple, practical metrics for the performance of the final system to compare with existing solutions. |
URL | https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-T1800448 |
Description | Nikhef |
Organisation | National Institute for Subatomic Physics Nikhef |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We are bringing the development of a phase-camera at Nikhef into the LIGO Scientific Community |
Collaborator Contribution | The primary readout system of the Nikhef phase camera, developed for Advanced Virgo, represents several (~10) person years of effort. They will make 3 more copies of the FPGA and analog front-end that we will purchase for use in LIGO. These boards are provided at cost, adding tremendous value to the project. Additionally they are modifying the communications protocols of the FPGA boards slightly in order to integrate them more easily with LIGO's Control and Data System. |
Impact | Since the contributions are (duplicate) hardware and hardware development time, there is no output published outcome. |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | A 6D interferometric isolator |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presentation to a mixed community of gravitation and nano-scale researchers highlighting the importance of vibration reduction for future gravitational wave observatories. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://agenda.infn.it/event/17248/ |
Description | An update on the progress of the 6D interferometric isolator |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | An invited talk to the OzGrav consortium at their monthly meetings. There was quite some interest, especially from colleagues a the University of Western Australia, who also work with low-frequency experiments. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.ozgrav.org/ |
Description | Colloquium at Nikhef |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | A colloquium was presented at Nikhef, updating the audience on the developments and observations of gravitational waves at LIGO. The audience consisted partly of researchers in the Virgo collaboration, but primarily particle physics researchers. Building ties between gravitational-wave research and particle physics is important for the future of our field, and I was able to give them some more detailed insight into the LIGO observatories. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://indico.nikhef.nl/event/1808/ |
Description | Forward Thinking programme for Year 9 school students |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | I was a speaker at the event Forward Thinking programme for Year 9 school students (50 participants). I gave a talk about space imaging and the students designed their own space telescope as a part of a group exercise and got positive feedback about the session. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/teachers/years-7-11/forward-thinking.aspx#:~:text=The%20programme%20is%... |
Description | Physics talks within the Birmingham Summer School for Year 10 students |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | I was a speaker at the event Physics talks within the Birmingham Summer School for Year 10 students (50 participants). I have a talk about imaging and discussed limitations on the optical resolution of cameras and human eyes and got positive feedback from the organisers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/teachers/years-7-11/year-10-summer-school.aspx |