Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state
Name
Abbott-2009-Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its.pdf
Size
2.47 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2a33b1f5a206bea5253b4e886a3afc4f
Author(s)
Bayer, K.
Blackburn, Lindy L.
Bodiya, Timothy Paul
Brunet, G.
Cao, Junwei
Corbitt, Thomas R.
Donovan, Frederick J.
Duke, I.
Fritschel, Peter K.
Goda, K.
Date Issued
July 2009
Journal
New Journal of Physics
Publisher
Institute of Physics Publishing
Citation
Abbott, B. et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration). "Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state." New Journal of Physics 11 (2009).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
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[superscript −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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/11/7/073032
