Seismic Isolation

Our seismic isolation work provides team leadership and advanced research for the ultra-quiet, precision-controlled tables where LIGO’s sensitive optics are mounted.

The seismic isolation and alignment system for Advanced LIGO was primarily developed by a team of scientists and engineers at Stanford, as part of a large team including people at MIT, Caltech, UC Boulder, professional design firms, and the LIGO observatories. We are currently working on continued improvement in the robust performance of those systems when faced with large environmental disturbances such as high wind and large, distant (teleseismic) earthquakes. Every additional hour of operation for these detectors is another hour of valuable observing time.

We also support research into techniques to enhance the existing isolation systems to enable future gravitational wave detectors by integrating cryogenic cooling systems for the mirrors onto the seismic isolation system without compromising the positioning or vibration requirements for the optics. This work is done in close collaboration with other members of the LSC.