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

在阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦预言引力波的一个世纪之后，由美国国家科学基金会资助的先进激光干涉仪引力波天文台（Advanced LIGO）通过发现黑洞和中子星合并的双星系统产生的引力波，为研究宇宙打开了一扇新的窗口。该奖项将扩大先进LIGO的范围，帮助它实现其全部承诺。特别是，它将支持研究减少“丢失”的光量，当它击中引力波探测器的光学器件时，并应用机器学习技术来发现和消除探测器数据中的干扰。这项研究将涉及并为加州州立大学富勒顿分校的本科生和硕士生提供可转移的技能，这是一所主要为本科生和西班牙裔服务的机构。这项研究的结果将提高光学技术的水平，并通过新的引力波发现加深我们对宇宙的理解。该奖项再次支持加州州立大学富勒顿的实验性引力波物理项目。PI将领导一个由本科生和硕士生组成的研究团队，重点研究对扩展高级LIGO的影响至关重要的两个领域。首先，他们将采用机器学习技术来识别导致仪器中时变噪声的物理过程，并努力改善它们。这将提高引力波观测的频率和从中提取的信息的准确性。其次，他们将进行实验，以确定引力波探测器光学中光散射背后的机制，这是直接限制LIGO灵敏度的量子噪声的关键。将开发一种新的仪器来测试LIGO光学系统产生的长而神秘的点状散射是否与光学系统退火过程中形成的微晶体有关。这项工作将导致更高质量的光学和改进量子降噪技术，如未来引力波天文台的压缩光。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.