B. Miller’s research while affiliated with National Institute for Subatomic Physics and other places

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Publications (137)


Search for Eccentric Black Hole Coalescences during the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo
  • Article

September 2024

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83 Reads

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11 Citations

The Astrophysical Journal

A. G. Abac

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R. Abbott

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H. Abe

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[...]

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Despite the growing number of binary black hole coalescences confidently observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include the effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that have already been identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total source-frame mass M > 70 M ⊙ ) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz emitted gravitational-wave frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place a conservative upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0 < e ≤ 0.3 at 16.9 Gpc ⁻³ yr ⁻¹ at the 90% confidence level.


Search for Gravitational-lensing Signatures in the Full Third Observing Run of the LIGO–Virgo Network
  • Article
  • Full-text available

July 2024

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81 Reads

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31 Citations

The Astrophysical Journal

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions to gravitational wave (GW) signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by (1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, (2) calculating the degree of overlap among the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, (3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms among pairs of signals, and (4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by (1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and (2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the nondetection of GW lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects.

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Search for Gravitational-wave Transients Associated with Magnetar Bursts in Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo Data from the Third Observing Run

April 2024

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166 Reads

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12 Citations

The Astrophysical Journal

Gravitational waves are expected to be produced from neutron star oscillations associated with magnetar giant flares and short bursts. We present the results of a search for short-duration (milliseconds to seconds) and long-duration (∼100 s) transient gravitational waves from 13 magnetar short bursts observed during Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA’s third observation run. These 13 bursts come from two magnetars, SGR 1935+2154 and Swift J1818.0−1607. We also include three other electromagnetic burst events detected by Fermi-GBM which were identified as likely coming from one or more magnetars, but they have no association with a known magnetar. No magnetar giant flares were detected during the analysis period. We find no evidence of gravitational waves associated with any of these 16 bursts. We place upper limits on the rms of the integrated incident gravitational-wave strain that reach 3.6 × 10 ⁻²³ / Hz at 100 Hz for the short-duration search and 1.1 × 10 ⁻²² / Hz at 450 Hz for the long-duration search. For a ringdown signal at 1590 Hz targeted by the short-duration search the limit is set to 2.3 × 10 ⁻²² / Hz . Using the estimated distance to each magnetar, we derive upper limits on the emitted gravitational-wave energy of 1.5 × 10 ⁴⁴ erg (1.0 × 10 ⁴⁴ erg) for SGR 1935+2154 and 9.4 × 10 ⁴³ erg (1.3 × 10 ⁴⁴ erg) for Swift J1818.0−1607, for the short-duration (long-duration) search. Assuming isotropic emission of electromagnetic radiation of the burst fluences, we constrain the ratio of gravitational-wave energy to electromagnetic energy for bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with the available fluence information. The lowest of these ratios is 4.5 × 10 ³ .


A Joint Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT Analysis of Gravitational-wave Candidates from the Third Gravitational-wave Observing Run

March 2024

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104 Reads

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9 Citations

The Astrophysical Journal

We present Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM) and Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift-BAT) searches for gamma-ray/X-ray counterparts to gravitational-wave (GW) candidate events identified during the third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. Using Fermi-GBM onboard triggers and subthreshold gamma-ray burst (GRB) candidates found in the Fermi-GBM ground analyses, the Targeted Search and the Untargeted Search, we investigate whether there are any coincident GRBs associated with the GWs. We also search the Swift-BAT rate data around the GW times to determine whether a GRB counterpart is present. No counterparts are found. Using both the Fermi-GBM Targeted Search and the Swift-BAT search, we calculate flux upper limits and present joint upper limits on the gamma-ray luminosity of each GW. Given these limits, we constrain theoretical models for the emission of gamma rays from binary black hole mergers.


Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Fast Radio Bursts Detected by CHIME/FRB during the LIGO–Virgo Observing Run O3a

September 2023

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319 Reads

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14 Citations

The Astrophysical Journal

We search for gravitational-wave (GW) transients associated with fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project, during the first part of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 April 1 15:00 UTC–2019 October 1 15:00 UTC). Triggers from 22 FRBs were analyzed with a search that targets both binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers. A targeted search for generic GW transients was conducted on 40 FRBs. We find no significant evidence for a GW association in either search. Given the large uncertainties in the distances of our FRB sample, we are unable to exclude the possibility of a GW association. Assessing the volumetric event rates of both FRB and binary mergers, an association is limited to 15% of the FRB population for BNS mergers or 1% for NSBH mergers. We report 90% confidence lower bounds on the distance to each FRB for a range of GW progenitor models and set upper limits on the energy emitted through GWs for a range of emission scenarios. We find values of order 10 ⁵¹ –10 ⁵⁷ erg for models with central GW frequencies in the range 70–3560 Hz. At the sensitivity of this search, we find these limits to be above the predicted GW emissions for the models considered. We also find no significant coincident detection of GWs with the repeater, FRB 20200120E, which is the closest known extragalactic FRB.


Flowchart of the various tools and monitors used for the Virgo DetChar studies during the O3 run—the results of these analyses are presented in the companion article [9]. The dataflow starts from the raw data acquired from the detector. These are then analyzed by a wide set of DetChar tools, which in turn produce outputs of various types, used at different analysis levels. Either to monitor the detector and the data taking, or to construct data quality (in short ‘DQ’) estimators, to be used by GW search pipelines.
Example of the plots produced by the dataDisplay (left) and main panel of its graphical user interface (right).
DMS snapshot closest in time to the GW190412 GW event, showing the detailed status of the Virgo detector about 4 s after the arrival of that signal.
Screenshot of a VIM web page displaying information about the Virgo detector on Tuesday 18 February 2020. Top left plot, stripchart of the detector status: the weekly maintenance, preceded by a planned calibration and followed by a short commissioning period, interrupts the data taking that restarts in the evening. Top right plot: daily sensitivity compared with references. Bottom left plot: glitch monitoring provided by the Omicron analysis described in section 4.1. Bottom right plot: spectrogram of the GW strain h(t) in the 20–210 Hz frequency range.
Example of stationarity time–frequency map obtained with BRiSTOL, where a significance α=1% has been chosen and regions rejecting the stationarity hypothesis are colored in shades of red.

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Virgo detector characterization and data quality: tools

August 2023

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165 Reads

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10 Citations

Detector characterization and data quality studies—collectively referred to as DetChar activities in this article—are paramount to the scientific exploitation of the joint dataset collected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA global network of ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. They take place during each phase of the operation of the instruments (upgrade, tuning and optimization, data taking), are required at all steps of the dataflow (from data acquisition to the final list of GW events) and operate at various latencies (from near real-time to vet the public alerts to offline analyses). This work requires a wide set of tools which have been developed over the years to fulfill the requirements of the various DetChar studies: data access and bookkeeping; global monitoring of the instruments and of the different steps of the data processing; studies of the global properties of the noise at the detector outputs; identification and follow-up of noise peculiar features (whether they be transient or continuously present in the data); quick processing of the public alerts. The present article reviews all the tools used by the Virgo DetChar group during the third LIGO-Virgo Observation Run (O3, from April 2019 to March 2020), mainly to analyze the Virgo data acquired at EGO. Concurrently, a companion article focuses on the results achieved by the DetChar group during the O3 run using these tools.


Virgo detector characterization and data quality: results from the O3 run

August 2023

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165 Reads

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36 Citations

The Advanced Virgo detector has contributed with its data to the rapid growth of the number of detected GW signals in the past few years, alongside the two Advanced LIGO instruments. First during the last month of the Observation Run 2 (O2) in August 2017 (with, most notably, the compact binary mergers GW170814 and GW170817), and then during the full Observation Run 3 (O3): an 11 months data taking period, between April 2019 and March 2020, that led to the addition of 79 events to the catalog of transient GW sources maintained by LIGO, Virgo and now KAGRA. These discoveries and the manifold exploitation of the detected waveforms benefit from an accurate characterization of the quality of the data, such as continuous study and monitoring of the detector noise sources. These activities, collectively named detector characterization and data quality or DetChar, span the whole workflow of the Virgo data, from the instrument front-end hardware to the final analyses. They are described in detail in the following article, with a focus on the results achieved by the Virgo DetChar group during the O3 run. Concurrently, a companion article describes the tools that have been used by the Virgo DetChar group to perform this work.


Search for Eccentric Black Hole Coalescences during the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo

August 2023

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427 Reads

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70M>70 MM_\odot) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e0.30 < e \leq 0.3 at 0.33 Gpc3^{-3} yr1^{-1} at 90\% confidence level.


FIG. 1. Experimental setup (not to scale) for the FDS generation installed at the Virgo site. The interferometer arms and the filter cavity are 3 km and 285 m long, respectively, while the SQB1-SQB2 and SQB2-FCIM vacuum tanks are 10 m and 40 m apart, respectively. The expanded area in the green frame contains the simplified optical layout, the description of which can be found in the text. The measurements reported in Figs. 2 and 3 are made with the half-wave plate HWP1, setting the IR beam polarization axis in order to maximize the polarizing beam splitter PS1 reflection toward the M5 mirror, and from there to the diagnostic homodyne detector. Prior to the measurements, the subcarrier beam is used to align the IR fields to the FC. It is subsequently blocked by the motorized shutter SH. This procedure is automatically repeated after each FC unlock. Alternatively, by rotating with HWP1 the beam's polarization by 90°, the IR beams are directed toward the interferometer for squeezing injection, which is part of the currently ongoing second phase of the project. The figure shows the beam paths for the two mutually exclusive cases. The relevant acronyms are as follows: AOM, acoustooptic modulator; HWP, half-wave plate; M, mirror; DM, dichroic mirror; SHG, second harmonic generator; OPA, optical parametric amplifier; HD, homodyne detector; QPD, rf quadrant photodiode; PD, photodiode; PLL, phase locked loop; SH, beam shutter; PS, polarizing beam splitter; DET, detection bench; FCIM and FCEM, filter cavity input and end mirror, respectively.
FIG. 4. Filter cavity detuning frequency versus the end mirror ring heater temperature. Each point corresponds to a pair of values measured every 3 min within 24 h. The maximum correlation is obtained assuming that the temperature of the mirror lags behind that of the ring heater by about 60 min.
Frequency-Dependent Squeezed Vacuum Source for the Advanced Virgo Gravitational-Wave Detector

July 2023

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227 Reads

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20 Citations

Physical Review Letters

In this Letter, we present the design and performance of the frequency-dependent squeezed vacuum source that will be used for the broadband quantum noise reduction of the Advanced Virgo Plus gravitational-wave detector in the upcoming observation run. The frequency-dependent squeezed field is generated by a phase rotation of a frequency-independent squeezed state through a 285 m long, high-finesse, near-detuned optical resonator. With about 8.5 dB of generated squeezing, up to 5.6 dB of quantum noise suppression has been measured at high frequency while close to the filter cavity resonance frequency, the intracavity losses limit this value to about 2 dB. Frequency-dependent squeezing is produced with a rotation frequency stability of about 6 Hz rms, which is maintained over the long term. The achieved results fulfill the frequency dependent squeezed vacuum source requirements for Advanced Virgo Plus. With the current squeezing source, considering also the estimated squeezing degradation induced by the interferometer, we expect a reduction of the quantum shot noise and radiation pressure noise of up to 4.5 dB and 2 dB, respectively.


Figure 1. The FPPs of each lensed candidate pair constructed from the set of GW events that exceed an astrophysical probability (Farr et al. 2015; Kapadia et al. 2020) threshold of 0.5, as evaluated using the B L U and ML classification statistics. Orange dashed lines that correspond to an FPP threshold of 10 −2 , are also placed. Pairs whose B L U -based or ML-based FPPs fall below this threshold are selected for additional joint parameter estimation analyses. B L U < 10 −6 has been mapped to an FPP of 1, which is reflected in the gap along the vertical axis between 0.4 and 1.
Figure 4. Distribution of microlensing log 10 Bayes factors B Micro U for all events in O3 (blue, solid line) and simulated unlensed signals (orange, dashed line) from Abbott et al. (2021a). bution of log 10 B Micro U for all the events in O3 and simulated unlensed signals from Abbott et al. (2021a). The distribution of log 10 B Micro U is primarily clustered around 0 and the distribution for O3 events does not extend to significantly higher values than the distribution for simulated signals. The marginalized posteriors of the microlensing parameters are shown in Appendix B. We conclude that there is no compelling evidence for the presence of microlensing signatures.
Figure 5. Merger rate density as a function of redshift based on the GWTC-3 results without lensing constraints (grey) and with lensing constraints (cross-hatching) included. For clarity, we show only the results for galaxy-scale lenses. Because lensed detections may occur at higher redshifts than unlensed events, their non-observation can be used to constrain the rate of mergers at higher redshifts. The 'No lensing' results shown here do not include constraints derived from the absence of an SGWB. The latter constraints are shown separately by the solid black curves.
Figure 6. The spread in the 90% upper limits on f DM obtained from the O3 events using 5 different redshift distribution models for BBH mergers: Belczynski et al. (2016),Dominik et al. (2013), Madau & Dickinson (2014), Abbott et al. (2021j) and uniform in comoving 4-volume, assuming a monochromatic mass spectrum for the compact objects forming dark matter. The lens mass is shown on the horizontal axis. The grey (black) shaded regions correspond to the spread in f DM upper bounds computed assuming flat (Jeffreys) prior on Λ and Λ . The upper and lower curves bounding the spreads correspond to the most pessimistic (weakest) and optimistic (strongest) upper limits, as determined from the set of assumed redshift distributions, in each mass bin.
Figure 10. Marginalized posterior distributions of redshifted lens mass M z L and log 10 B Micro U between microlensed and unlensed hypotheses.
Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

April 2023

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449 Reads

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6 Citations

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects.


Citations (65)


... These corrections enhance eccentricity growth during periastron passages, accelerating the formation of eccentric BBHs in dense clusters [21]. ...

Reference:

Refining Eccentric Binary Black Hole Coalescences through the Dodecahedron Linear String Field Hypothesis (DLSFH) Paper #5507
Search for Eccentric Black Hole Coalescences during the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo
  • Citing Article
  • September 2024

The Astrophysical Journal

... Indeed, both the first strongly lensed binary black hole (BH) and binary neutron star (NS) mergers are expected for the beginning of the fifth LVK observation run (O5) (e.g. Abbott et al. 2021Abbott et al. , 2024. ...

Search for Gravitational-lensing Signatures in the Full Third Observing Run of the LIGO–Virgo Network

The Astrophysical Journal

... The f -mode frequency is closely tied to tidal deformability during the inspiral phase of NS mergers, as fluid perturbations peak at the stellar surface, strongly coupling to the tidal field. Apart from neutron star mergers various phenomena can trigger the excitation of f -modes in neutron stars, including the formation of newly born neutron stars [20], starquakes [21,22], magnetar activity [23,24]. For GW170817, the 90% credible interval for the f -mode frequency was estimated between 1.43 kHz and 2.90 kHz for the more massive NS and 1.48 kHz and 3.18 kHz for the less massive one [25]. ...

Search for Gravitational-wave Transients Associated with Magnetar Bursts in Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo Data from the Third Observing Run

The Astrophysical Journal

... No gravitational signal was found in association neither to Fast Radio Bursts detected by CHIME/FRB during O3a [32], nor to magnetar bursts during O3 [38]. In addition, the joint Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT Analysis [106] and the Swift-BAT GUANO follow-up [178] of gravitational candidates during O3 run were negative. The search for coincident optical, high energy candidates in Swift observations and gravitational candidates was negative [132]. ...

A Joint Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT Analysis of Gravitational-wave Candidates from the Third Gravitational-wave Observing Run

The Astrophysical Journal

... Active searches to find time-coincident events in these two domains are therefore needed e.g. [91,92]. Searching for the association of FRBs with GWs is currently inefficient, primarily due to the following reasons. ...

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Fast Radio Bursts Detected by CHIME/FRB during the LIGO–Virgo Observing Run O3a

The Astrophysical Journal

... GW data analysis procedures, such as those regarding the estimation of GW source parameters [9][10][11], typically assume the detector noise to be stationary and Gaussian [12]. This assumption breaks down in the presence of 'glitches'; transient noise artifacts that introduce non-Gaussian and non-stationary features in the data [13][14][15]. Glitches are unmodeled terrestrial noise events stemming from environmental factors (e.g., earthquakes, wind, anthropogenic noise) or instrumental issues (e.g., control systems, electronic components [16]). ...

Virgo detector characterization and data quality: results from the O3 run

... These channels record seismic, acoustic, and magnetic disturbances, among others, and offer valuable insights into potential noise sources. Tests that correlate excess energy in the strain with signals in auxiliary channels are particularly powerful for identifying noise sources [14,21]; if the excess energy in the strain data coincides with a signal in an auxiliary channel, especially one not expected to carry astrophysical information, it may suggest that the excess is noise-related, thereby ruling out the event as a GW 3 ...

Virgo detector characterization and data quality: tools

... Such frequency-dependent rotation can be achieved by reflecting the squeezed vacuum field off detuned single-sided cavities, which imprint a frequency-dependent phase shift onto the squeeze field (ideally) without altering its properties [34]. Development of frequency-dependent squeezing for GW detectors began in late 2000s [87][88][89][90][91], culminating in the deployment of the technology in Advanced LIGO in 2023 [32]. In 2024, Advanced LIGO successfully demonstrated sensi-tivity below the SQL using this technique [92], marking a significant milestone in quantum noise suppression for GW detection. ...

Frequency-Dependent Squeezed Vacuum Source for the Advanced Virgo Gravitational-Wave Detector

Physical Review Letters

... The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) detectors [1][2][3][4][5] have now observed nearly three hundred gravitational waves from merging BBHs, including almost two hundred candidates detected during the ongoing fourth observing run (O4) [6,7]. Analyses of this population of sources as a whole have revealed that the mass distribution includes substructure [8][9][10][11] beyond a simple power law [12] plus Gaussian peak [13], that BBHs typically have small spin magnitudes [14][15][16][17][18][19], and that the merger rate distribution evolves with redshift [8,[20][21][22][23][24]. Evidence has also been reported for correlations between the BBH spin, mass, and redshift distributions [8,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], hinting at the possibility of multiple sub-populations [33][34][35][36][37]. ...

Population of Merging Compact Binaries Inferred Using Gravitational Waves through GWTC-3

Physical Review X

... An arm-length stabilization (ALS) system is indispensable to robustly bring such an interferometer to the operating state [4][5][6][7]. Current terrestrial GWDs, Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA, employ 532 nm wavelength green lasers generated via second-harmonic generation (SHG) as an auxiliary laser for the ALS system, while the main laser wavelength is 1064 nm [6][7][8]. This enables the arm cavity lengths to be pre-stabilized independently from other DoFs, allowing those other DoFs to be locked without interference from the arm cavities. ...

The Advanced Virgo+ status

Journal of Physics Conference Series