Microseismic ground motion induced scattered light noise at the LIGO Livingston detector in the fourth observing run
Title: Gravitational wave detectors: noise sources
Speaker: Gabriela González, Louisiana State University
Abstract: A new era of gravitational wave astronomy started several decades ago, with the continuous improvement in sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors, leading to the first detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes in 2015, and the hundreds that followed. I will describe the limits to current astrophysical sensitivity in LIGO detectors due to different noise sources, and efforts and investigations to mitigate them done by hundreds of scientists around the world.
Title: Microseismic ground motion induced scattered light noise at the LIGO Livingston detector in the fourth observing run
Speaker: Debasmita Nandi, Louisiana State University
Abstract: Scattered light is a major contributor to transient noise in the advanced LIGO detectors in the low-frequency band between 10 and 60 Hz. Since the start of the fourth observation run (O4), LIGO Livingston detector has experienced a notable increase in the rate of glitches in the low frequency regime especially during the periods of elevated microseismic ground motion. The morphology of these glitches suggest that they are created by scattered light. Our investigation focuses on characterizing the properties of these glitches and modelling their coupling mechanisms, enabling us to identify likely scattering sources within the detector. Characterizing and mitigating these noise sources is essential for enhancing the detectors’ sensitivity to astrophysical gravitational wave signals especially in the low frequency regime.