ILIAS-GWA WP1 BUILDING UP THE EUROPEAN GW COMMUNITY H.Grote - G. Losurdo WP1 co-chairs

FROM ILIAS TO ET The main members of the European GW Community joined their forces in ET Hard to be conceived a few years ago. Long path walked together in the ILIAS framework ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 2

ILIAS-GWA Objectives Increase the level of EU coordination Maximise return on large investments already made Enhance the performance of existing detectors Prepare the future of this discipline in Europe Improve the exchange of infos on subjects of common interest Foster the development of common methodologies for joint observations ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 3

WP1 Objectives To speed up the commissioning and the characterization of Virgo and GEO by means of a deeper collaboration between the two teams* To develop common methods of characterization of interferometric GW detectors to be applied to Virgo and GEO To provide inputs for establishing priorities for short term improvements of the existing interferometric detectors on the base of the Virgo and GEO characterization * Two appointed WP1 members come from the resonant detectors community ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 4

WP1 – FURTHER ACHIEVEMENTS Today: A real collaboration among a group of young physicists has been established. Reciprocal confidence has been built. Tomorrow: the grown-up WG1 fellows will hopefully continue to collaborate and might lead the joint effort for a new EUROPEAN detector. ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 5

DETECTORS AT ILIAS STARTUP (2004) ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 6

EXECUTION PLAN Extended to 5th year ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 7

WP1 ACTIVITY PARALLEL PROJECTS WP1 meetings The windmills project environmental noise studies WP1 meetings 1st meeting, Cascina, Jul 7-8 2004 2nd meeting, Hannover, Sep 23-24 2004 3rd meeting, Cascina, Jan 24-26 2005 4th meeting, Hannover, April 7-8 2005 5th meeting, Telecon, Jul 14 2005 6th meeting, Perugia, Sep19-20 2005 7th meeting, Hannover, Dec 12 2005 8th meeting, Frascati, Mar 20-21 2006 9th meeting, Potsdam, Jul 21-22 2006 10th meeting, Cascina, Nov 13-14 2006 11th meeting, Hannover, Jan 23-24, 2007 12th meeting, CERN, Mar 29-30, 2007 13th meeting, Cascina, Jun 19-20, 2007 14th meeting, Hannover, Oct 22-25, 2007 15th meeting, Cascina, Mar 5-6, 2008 16th meeting, Birmingham, Jul , 2008 The windmills project 1st telecon, May 12, 2005 Team meeting, Cascina, 7-9 June 2005 Seismic survey, GEO600 site, July 25-29 2005 2nd telecon, August 25, 2005 The beam centering project 1st report, Napoli-Cascina, June 10-14, 2005 interferometer controls The alignment simulation project 1st meeting, Birmingham, August 2006 The joint noise hunting project 1st report, Cascina, September 11-22 2006 2nd report, Cascina, October 16-20 2006 3rd report, Cascina, November 13-17 2006 4th report, Cascina, January 14-19 2007 Summary report sensitivity studies ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 8

SOME STATISTICS and curiosities 16 ordinary meetings + parallel projects Meetings usually held at Cascina/Hannover but also Perugia, Frascati, Potsdam, CERN, Birmingham 10 appointed members (2 students)… …but 35 different speakers (of which 13 students) Stefan Hild FIDELITY AWARD: 15 talks in 16 meetings ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 9

NOISE STUDIES Deep and fruitful discussions on methods for noise hunting (projections, coherence, noise propagation models, time-frequency methods, …) Noise projection proposed by GEO now widely used ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 10

NOISE STUDIES Stray light (or scattered light) is an important noise source for all of the interferometric detectors, and is hard to foresee and modelize Extremely small amounts of light power can cause significant problems Diagnostics: Search of spurious beams Acoustic noise injections Tapping/hammering tests Noise reduction techniques: New optical layouts for auxiliary beams Larger/higher quality optics AR-coated windows on photodiodes Beam dumps ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 11

THE JOINT NOISE HUNTING PROJECT A 9 months post-doc fellowship granted within ILIAS-N5 WP1. J.Smith (GEO) spent 25% of time at Virgo site Common noise investigations Virgo alignment noise projections Virgo laser power noise investigations GEO noise transfer functions simulation General noise hunting at both sites Knowledge exchange Common algos/Software exchange GEO algo for glitch parameterization implemented at Virgo GEO data viewer used at Virgo to listen to “dark fringe music” and for off-line analysis of data ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 12

TOOLS EXCHANGE GEO glitch monitor available at Virgo. Precious “commissioning oriented” tool for understanding detector noise Every point is a glitch: an excess of power for some short period of time (tens of ms) and a narrow frequency band (tens of Hz) data quality detector noise characterization vetoing J. Smith - G. Vajente HACR at Virgo ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 13

THE WINDMILLS PROJECT Costruction of two windmills stations near Virgo proposed. Concern for seismic disturbance The wind park next to GEO600: chance to study the windmills seismic wave field in a soft soil similar to the Virgo one. Seismic survey on GEO600 site using two stations run in coincidence A model of noise spectral composition and soil attenuation was done and used to predict effects of the wind parks at Virgo. A safety distance of 5km from Virgo buildings was defined. Positive reaction of both windmill companies, which modified projects layout to comply with our request. Joint VIRGO-GEO600 document: VIR-NOT-PIS-1390-317 (I.Fiori L.Giordano S.Hild G.Losurdo E.Marchetti G.Mayer F.Paoletti) ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 14

SHORT TERM IMPROVEMENTS During commissioning both detectors underwent to upgrades Deep discussion in the WG, to exchange experience and “warn” about risks Short term improvements Virgo new injection bench Virgo new PR mirror Virgo new IMC mirror Suspension control improvements IMC auto-alignment Fast centering of quadrants for auto-alignment Acoustic noise reduction Scattered light reduction Control noise reduction Radio frequency distribution system Thermal compensation ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 15

The beam centering project Centering of beam used for wavefront sensing on the quadrants is essential for the robustness of the alignment system Virgo quadrants are centered with a low bandwidth (<0.3 Hz) control Not enough to reduce rms considerably Noisy system GEO uses a commercial galvanometer scanner with custom mechanics and electronics. Succesfully tested on Virgo: very good suppression of beam fluctuations Galvo off Galvo on R.De Rosa, L. Di Fiore, H.Grote, H.Heitmann, J.Marque, ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 16

TOWARDS ILIAS END ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 17

Once fragile, interferometers have become robust and reliable! ROBUST INSTRUMENTS 18 May - 1 October 2007 Instrumental duty cycle: 84.2% Science time duty cycle: 81 % Longest lock: 94 hours Once fragile, interferometers have become robust and reliable! 1 May - 15 October 2007 Instrumental duty cycle: 94.3% Science time duty cycle: 91 % Longest lock: 102 hours ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 18

ILIAS-GWA has eased to process of creating a European GW community CONCLUSIVE REMARKS After a long commissioning the interferometric detectors of GW are entering the science era The European GW community has plans for the upgrades from generation 1.5 (Virgo+), 2 (Advanced Virgo, GEO HF), 3 (E.T.) ILIAS-GWA has eased to process of creating a European GW community ILIAS-ET Joint Meeting – Cascina, Nov. 25th, 2008 G.Losurdo – INFN Firenze 19