Advanced Experimental Systems for Gravitational Wave Detectors and Dark Matter Searches

自2015年秋季开始首次观测以来，先进的LIGO和处女座已经直接探测到黑洞和中子星碰撞产生的引力波，从而为天文学带来了一种新的仪器。这是通过测量两个很大程度上分开的镜子之间的距离的微小变化（在100赫兹下小于10^-19 m !）来实现的。先进的LIGO激光干涉仪已经是世界上最精确的测量设备，但是为了提高引力波探测的信噪比和率，在进一步改进干涉仪的道路上仍然存在许多挑战。来自于光的量子性质等基础物理学和技术来源（如用于控制干涉仪无数自由度的不完善传感器）的噪声需要突破技术极限的聪明解决方案。一个或多个博士生有几个可能的研究方向。项目可能包括开发和测试新的干涉仪读出方案，设计和建造倾斜不敏感惯性传感器以改善地震隔离，改进干涉仪的压缩光集成，设计和原型化新的光学布局以提高目标频率的灵敏度，为第三代干涉仪（如爱因斯坦望远镜）建模控制拓扑，并使用干涉测量法进行基础物理实验。博士研究生将获得高精度光学实验和复杂实验系统噪声分析的技能，同时为新兴的引力波天文学领域做出贡献。

Since the start of their first observing runs starting in fall 2015, Advanced LIGO and Virgo have made direct detections of gravitational waves created by the collisions of black holes and of neutron stars, thus bringing to life a new instrument for astronomy. This is accomplished through their measurements of infinitesimal changes (less than 10^-19 m at 100 Hz!) in the distance between two largely separated mirrors. The Advanced LIGO laser interferometers are already the most precise measurement devices in the world, but there nonetheless remains many challenges along the path to further improve the interferometers in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and rate of gravitational wave detections. Noise resulting from fundamental physics such as the quantum nature of light and from technical sources such as the imperfect sensors used for controlling the interferometer's myriad degrees of freedom require clever solutions that push the limits of technology. There are several possible research directions for one or more PhD students. Projects could include developing and testing new interferometric readout schemes, designing and building tilt-insensitive inertial sensors for improved seismic isolation, improving the integration of squeezed light to the interferometers, designing and prototyping new optical layouts for sensitivity improvement at targeted frequencies, modeling control topologies for third generation interferometers such as the Einstein Telescope, and contributing to fundamental physics experiments using interferometry. The PhD student will gain skills in high-precision optical experiments and noise analyses of complex experimental systems, all the while contributing to the budding field of gravitational-wave astronomy.