Adaptive Optics for Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

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This project will create a full scale facility for testing optical aberration correction schemes for the world's gravitational wave detectors. The optical surfaces in gravitational wave detectors must be controlled to the atomic level to limit the impact of quantum noise and maximize the sensitivity of these extraordinary instruments. The fine tuning of optical surfaces is done using the so-called thermal compensation systems and currently the performance of these systems can only be evaluated once they are installed on a gravitational wave detector. This is severely limiting the optimization of this critical sub-system and hence there is an urgent need for this facility because it will be the only one of its type anywhere on the globe.