RUI: Improving LIGO Optics and Data Quality to Increase the Rate and Accuracy of Gravitational-Wave Observations

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A century after the prediction of gravitational waves by Albert Einstein, the NSF-funded Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) opened a new window on the Universe by discovering gravitational waves from merging binary systems of black holes and neutron stars. This award will extend the reach of Advanced LIGO, helping it to achieve its full promise. In particular, it will support research to reduce the amount of light that is "lost" when it hits the optics in gravitational-wave detectors and to apply Machine Learning techniques to find and remove disturbances in the detector data. This research will involve and provide transferable skills to a diverse team of undergraduate and Master's students at California State University Fullerton, a primarily undergraduate and Hispanic-serving institution. The results of this research will improve upon the state-of-the art in optics and deepen our understanding of the Universe through new gravitational-wave discoveries. This award renews support for California State University Fullerton's experimental gravitational-wave physics program. The PI will lead a team of undergraduate and master's students in research focused on two areas critical to extending the reach of Advanced LIGO. First, they will adapt techniques from Machine Learning to identify the physical processes that cause time-varying noise in the instruments and work to ameliorate them. This will increase the rate of gravitational-wave observations and the accuracy of the information extracted from them. Second, they will conduct experiments to identify the mechanisms behind light scattering in gravitational-wave detector optics, a key to the quantum noise that directly limits LIGO's sensitivity. A new instrument will be developed to test whether the long mysterious point-like scatter from LIGO optics is related to micro-crystals formed during annealing of the optics. This work will lead to higher quality optics and improve quantum-noise reduction techniques such as squeezed light in future gravitational-wave observatories.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.