Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state

Observation of a kilogram-scale oscillator near its quantum ground state

We introduce a novel cooling technique capable of approaching the quantum ground state of a kilogram-scale system—an interferometric gravitational wave detector. The detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) operate within a factor of 10 of the standard quantum limi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bayer, K., Blackburn, Lindy L., Bodiya, Timothy Paul, Brunet, G., Cao, Junwei, Corbitt, Thomas R., Donovan, Frederick J., Duke, I., Fritschel, Peter K., Goda, K., Grimaldi, F., Harry, Gregory, Katsavounidis, Erotokritos, MacInnis, Myron E., Markowitz, Jared John, Mason, Kenneth R., Mavalvala, Nergis, Mittleman, R., Ottaway, David J., Ruet, L., Sarin, P., Shoemaker, David H., Smith, N. D., Stein, Leo Chaim, Weiss, Rainer, Wipf, Christopher C., Zucker, Michael E., LIGO Scientific Collaboration
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Institute of Physics Publishing 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70547
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6550-3045
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-2560
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2544-1596
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187
Description
Summary:We introduce a novel cooling technique capable of approaching the quantum ground state of a kilogram-scale system—an interferometric gravitational wave detector. The detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) operate within a factor of 10 of the standard quantum limit (SQL), providing a displacement sensitivity of 10[superscript −18] m in a 100 Hz band centered on 150 Hz. With a new feedback strategy, we dynamically shift the resonant frequency of a 2.7 kg pendulum mode to lie within this optimal band, where its effective temperature falls as low as 1.4 μK, and its occupation number reaches about 200 quanta. This work shows how the exquisite sensitivity necessary to detect gravitational waves can be made available to probe the validity of quantum mechanics on an enormous mass scale.

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