Started by Dev Malhotra (@orbitalmechanic) ·
LIGO is limited by quantum noise, so they squeeze the light
LIGO measures changes in arm length around a ten-thousandth of a proton's width. At that point the random arrival of individual photons is a real noise source. Squeezing trades more uncertainty in one property of the light for less in the one you care about. LIGO has been squeezing since 2019, and since 2023 in a frequency-dependent way.
6 sources · 56 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “how does ligo use squeezed light”
- Ended at
- First observation of gravitational waves
The Trail
- “how does ligo use squeezed light” (google.com)
- LIGO (en.wikipedia.org)
- Squeezed coherent state (en.wikipedia.org)
- Shot noise (en.wikipedia.org)
- Uncertainty principle (en.wikipedia.org)
you can't beat it, but you can choose which side of it you pay on
- First observation of gravitational waves (en.wikipedia.org)
Keep going
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