Squeezed laser will bring gravitational waves to the light of day
The new squeezing laser at GEO600. This highly complex laser system generates light which radiates much more calmly than light from a conventional laser source. (© AEI)
Measuring at the limits of the laws of nature – this is the challenge which researchers repeatedly take up in their search for gravitational waves. The interferometers they use here measure with such sensitivity that a particular quantum phenomenon of light – shot noise – limits the measuring accuracy. With the “squeezed light” method scientists from the Max Planck Society and the Leibniz Universität Hannover likewise use quantum physics in a countermove in order to remove the interfering effect. The new type of laser light improves the measuring accuracy of the gravitational wave detector GEO600 by around 50 percent and thus increases its effective sensitivity. This is the first time this technology has been used outside of a test laboratory anywhere in the world. The results will be published in the specialist journal Nature Physics, online on 11th September 2011. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NPHYS2083)
Optimized curve of measurement (rot): Squeezed laser light improves the sensitivity of GEO600 at frequencies from some hundreds Hertz and higher by about 50 percent. black curve: measurements without the squeezing laser. (© AEI/Grote/Schnabel)
