News from the Chair

Carl Caves' Interview in the LIGO Magazine

September 1, 2013: Carl Caves was interviewed in the LIGO Magazine ( page 16 ) on the occasion of LIGO's putting squeezed light into the Hanford interferometer

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO) is the US project to detect gravitational waves from astrophysical sources using large interferometers. LIGO has two large interferometers, both with four-kilometer arms, one in Livingston, Louisiana, and the other in Hanford, Washington. After running at initial design sensitivity for several years, the two interferometers were shut down for enhancement to what is called Advanced LIGO, which will have strain sensitivity improved by a factor of at least ten. The two detectors will be brought up to the enhanced sensitivity over several years beginning sometime in 2014. Squeezing was recently inserted into the Hanford detector and led to an improvement in sensitivity of about 2 dB at those frequencies where shot noise dominates the sensitivity.

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