Abstract
The success of a precision experiment is often associated to the use of low temperature techniques. In particular, when the thermal noise is a barrier for improving the experiment sensitivity, the cryogenics is crucial for beating this limitation. This strategy was applied in the case of the resonant gravitational wave detectors (GW) and now it is proposed for the future generation of the GW interferometers. In the following we summarize the history of GW detectors and we recall some of the basic principles of the cryogenic techniques. Then, we focus on the issues of cooling the mirrors of a GW interferometer.
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Notes
- 1.
Here we cite just few experiments among the several ones. A more detailed bibliography can be found in [7].
- 2.
The Joule–Thomson cryocoolers are based on an adiabatic expansion of the gas through an impedance orifice or a valve. This procedure is called a throttling process, and it permits to cool the gas when it is kept below its inversion temperature.
- 3.
During the cold war, the USA, Russia, and other countries stockpiled tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and in doing so accumulated vast amounts of \(^3\)He. Initially, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its predecessor agencies, which have maintained the US tritium stockpile, used to consider the gas useless and they considered to vent it into the atmosphere. In the 1980s, however, scientists began to realize the potential of \(^3\)He as a neutron detector and the price skyrocketed.
- 4.
The liquid phase above the \(\lambda \) point is named He-I.
- 5.
The high thermal conductivity allows also for the propagation of temperature waves (called second sound), which are reflected and diffracted as standard waves, but which give rise to temperature variations in small regions.
- 6.
The idea of using a reaction mass to control a suspended mirror has been originally pursued by the GEO group [25].
- 7.
This technique is applied also in the cooling process of all the GW resonant antennas.
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Ricci, F. (2014). Low Temperature and Gravitation Wave Detectors. In: Bassan, M. (eds) Advanced Interferometers and the Search for Gravitational Waves. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 404. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03792-9_14
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