AVS 64th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Vacuum Technology Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session VT-TuM

Invited Paper VT-TuM1
The Role of Vacuum Technology in Discovering the Gravitational Waves from Merging Black Holes

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 8:00 am, Room 7 & 8

Session: Large Vacuum Systems
Presenter: Michael Zucker, LIGO Project Caltech and MIT
Authors: R.F.M. Weiss, LIGO Project Caltech and MIT
M. Zucker, LIGO Project Caltech and MIT
Correspondent: Click to Email
The observation of the gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes involved measuring the motion of mirrors to a precision of 10-18 meters over a distance of 4 km. The measurement was made by optical interferometry between suspended mirrors. Vacuum of 10-9 torr was required in 1.2 meter diameter 4km long beam tubes to avoid phase noise of the light and equivalently high vacuum was needed to avoid thermal noise of the mirrors from molecular collisions. The residual hydrocarbon background had to be controlled to avoid contamination of the optics. A significant challenge was to design and construct the vacuum system economically. Some of the fundamental physics and the engineering of the system will be described.