Optica Publishing Group Congratulates the 2017 Nobel Prize Winners in Physics


Rainer Weiss
Rainer Weiss
Barry C. Barish
Barry C. Barish
Kip S. Thorne
Kip S. Thorne

The Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics to three key figures in the history of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)–Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, and Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA. The award citation recognized the trio "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves."

Optica Publishing Group congratulates all three recipients and further salutes the numerous scientists, engineers, and funders who contributed to this technological achievement over more than four decades. In addition, we are proud of the fact that the observation of gravitational waves rested on an infrastructure of incredibly precise, cutting-edge optical and photonic technology.

In honor of this year's Nobel Prize and LIGO recognition, Optica Publishing Group has put together a collection of LIGO-related content from Optica Publishing Group's portfolio below. The following articles will be free to download until 4 January 2018.

About the LIGO Discovery— Optics & Photonics News Articles
  1. "Three LIGO Pioneers Take Nobel Physics Prize," Opt. Photon. News: 03 October 2017
  2. Thomas F. Carruthers and David H. Reitze, "LIGO: Finally Poised to Catch Elusive Gravitational Waves?," Opt. Photon. News 26(3), 44-51 (2015)
Optica Publishing Group Journal Articles—Rainer Weiss
  1. Jameson Rollins, David Ottaway, Michael Zucker, Rainer Weiss, and Richard Abbott, "Solid-state laser intensity stabilization at the 10-8 level," Opt. Lett. 29, 1876-1878 (2004)
  2. M. Evans, N. Mavalvala, P. Fritschel, R. Bork, B. Bhawal, R. Gustafson, W. Kells, M. Landry, D. Sigg, R. Weiss, S. Whitcomb, and H. Yamamoto, "Lock acquisition of a gravitational-wave interferometer," Opt. Lett. 27, 598-600 (2002)
  3. Peter Fritschel and Rainer Weiss, "Frequency match of the Nd:YAG laser at 1.064 µm with a line in CO2," Appl. Opt. 31, 1910-1912 (1992)
  4. Peter Fritschel, David Shoemaker, and Rainer Weiss, "Demonstration of light recycling in a Michelson interferometer with Fabry–Perot cavities," Appl. Opt. 31, 1412-1418 (1992)
  5. David Shoemaker, Peter Fritschel, Joseph Giaime, Nelson Christensen, and Rainer Weiss, "Prototype Michelson interferometer with Fabry–Perot cavities," Appl. Opt. 30, 3133-3138 (1991)
Selection of Other Top-Cited Journal Articles Related to the LIGO Project (listed below in citation order)
  1. B. Willke, N. Uehara, E. K. Gustafson, R. L. Byer, P. J. King, S. U. Seel, and R. L. Savage, "Spatial and temporal filtering of a 10-W Nd:YAG laser with a Fabry–Perot ring-cavity premode cleaner," Opt. Lett. 23, 1704-1706 (1998)
  2. Gregory M. Harry, Helena Armandula, Eric Black, D. R. M. Crooks, Gianpietro Cagnoli, Jim Hough, Peter Murray, Stuart Reid, Sheila Rowan, Peter Sneddon, Martin M. Fejer, Roger Route, and Steven D. Penn, "Thermal noise from optical coatings in gravitational wave detectors," Appl. Opt. 45, 1569-1574 (2006)
  3. Efim Khazanov, Nicolay Andreev, Oleg Palashov, Anatoly Poteomkin, Alexander Sergeev, Oliver Mehl, and David H. Reitze, "Effect of terbium gallium garnet crystal orientation on the isolation ratio of a Faraday isolator at high average power," Appl. Opt. 41, 483-492 (2002)
  4. M. J. Lawrence, B. Willke, M. E. Husman, E. K. Gustafson, and R. L. Byer, "Dynamic response of a Fabry–Perot interferometer," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 16, 523-532 (1999)
  5. Peter Fritschel, Rolf Bork, Gabriela González, Nergis Mavalvala, Dale Ouimette, Haisheng Rong, Daniel Sigg, and Michael Zucker, "Readout and control of a power-recycled interferometric gravitational-wave antenna," Appl. Opt. 40, 4988-4998 (2001)
  6. Peter Fritschel, Nergis Mavalvala, David Shoemaker, Daniel Sigg, Michael Zucker, and Gabriela González, "Alignment of an interferometric gravitational wave detector," Appl. Opt. 37, 6734-6747 (1998)
  7. Ryan Lawrence, David Ottaway, Michael Zucker, and Peter Fritschel, "Active correction of thermal lensing through external radiative thermal actuation," Opt. Lett. 29, 2635-2637 (2004)
  8. P. Kwee, C. Bogan, K. Danzmann, M. Frede, H. Kim, P. King, J. Pöld, O. Puncken, R. L. Savage, F. Seifert, P. Wessels, L. Winkelmann, and B. Willke, "Stabilized high-power laser system for the gravitational wave detector advanced LIGO," Opt. Express 20, 10617-10634 (2012)
  9. Kenneth A. Strain, Guido Müller, Tom Delker, David H. Reitze, David B. Tanner, James E. Mason, Phil A. Willems, Daniel A. Shaddock, Malcolm B. Gray, Conor Mow-Lowry, and David E. McClelland, "Sensing and control in dual-recycling laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors," Appl. Opt. 42, 1244-1256 (2003)
  10. Marco G. Tarallo, John Miller, J. Agresti, E. D'Ambrosio, R. DeSalvo, D. Forest, B. Lagrange, J. M. Mackowsky, C. Michel, J. L. Montorio, N. Morgado, L. Pinard, A. Remilleux, B. Simoni, and P. Willems, "Generation of a flat-top laser beam for gravitational wave detectors by means of a nonspherical Fabry-Perot resonator," Appl. Opt. 46, 6648-6654 (2007)
  11. Frank Seifert, Patrick Kwee, Michèle Heurs, Benno Willke, and Karsten Danzmann, "Laser power stabilization for second-generation gravitational wave detectors," Opt. Lett. 31, 2000-2002 (2006)
  12. Arun Kumar Sridharan, Shailendhar Saraf, Supriyo Sinha, and Robert L. Byer, "Zigzag slabs for solid-state laser amplifiers: batch fabrication and parasitic oscillation suppression," Appl. Opt. 45, 3340-3351 (2006)
  13. Patrick Kwee, Benno Willke, and Karsten Danzmann, "Shot-noise-limited laser power stabilization with a high-power photodiode array," Opt. Lett. 34, 2912-2914 (2009)
  14. S. Dwyer, L. Barsotti, S. S. Y. Chua, M. Evans, M. Factourovich, D. Gustafson, T. Isogai, K. Kawabe, A. Khalaidovski, P. K. Lam, M. Landry, N. Mavalvala, D. E. McClelland, G. D. Meadors, C. M. Mow-Lowry, R. Schnabel, R. M. S. Schofield, N. Smith-Lefebvre, M. Stefszky, C. Vorvick, and D. Sigg, "Squeezed quadrature fluctuations in a gravitational wave detector using squeezed light," Opt. Express 21, 19047-19060 (2013)
  15. Jordan Camp, Lisa Sievers, Rolf Bork, and Jay Heefner, "Guided lock acquisition in a suspended Fabry–Perot cavity," Opt. Lett. 20, 2463-2465 (1995)
  16. Christopher J. Walsh, Achim J. Leistner, and Bozenko F. Oreb, "Power spectral density analysis of optical substrates for gravitational-wave interferometry," Appl. Opt. 38, 4790-4801 (1999)
  17. Seiji Kawamura and Michael E. Zucker, "Mirror-orientation noise in a Fabry–Perot interferometer gravitational wave detector," Appl. Opt. 33, 3912-3918 (1994)
  18. James E. Mason and Phil A. Willems, "Signal extraction and optical design for an advanced gravitational-wave interferometer," Appl. Opt. 42, 1269-1282 (2003)
  19. Stefan Hild, Harald Lück, Walter Winkler, Ken Strain, Hartmut Grote, Joshua Smith, Michaela Malec, Martin Hewitson, Benno Willke, James Hough, and Karsten Danzmann, "Measurement of a low-absorption sample of OH-reduced fused silica," Appl. Opt. 45, 7269-7272 (2006)
  20. Guido Müller, Tom Delker, David B. Tanner, and David Reitze, "Dual-recycled cavity-enhanced Michelson interferometer for gravitational-wave detection," Appl. Opt. 42, 1257-1268 (2003)
  21. J. B. Camp, H. Yamamoto, S. E. Whitcomb, and D. E. McClelland, "Analysis of light noise sources in a recycled Michelson interferometer with Fabry–Perot arms," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 17, 120-128 (2000)
  22. Bernard Cimma, Danièle Forest, Patrick Ganau, Bernard Lagrange, Jean-Marie Mackowski, Christophe Michel, Jean-Luc Montorio, Nazario Morgado, Renée Pignard, Laurent Pinard, and Alban Remillieux, "Ion beam sputtering coatings on large substrates: toward an improvement of the mechanical and optical performances," Appl. Opt. 45, 1436-1439 (2006)
  23. Christopher J. Walsh, Achim J. Leistner, Jeffrey Seckold, Bozenko F. Oreb, and David I. Farrant, "Fabrication and measurement of optics for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory," Appl. Opt. 38, 2870-2879 (1999)
  24. Daniel A. Shaddock, Malcolm B. Gray, Conor Mow-Lowry, and David E. McClelland, "Power-recycled Michelson interferometer with resonant sideband extraction," Appl. Opt. 42, 1283-1295 (2003)
  25. Jérôme Degallaix, Chunnong Zhao, Li Ju, and David Blair, "Thermal tuning of optical cavities for parametric instability control," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 24, 1336-1343 (2007)
  26. E. Oelker, L. Barsotti, S. Dwyer, D. Sigg, and N. Mavalvala, "Squeezed light for advanced gravitational wave detectors and beyond," Opt. Express 22, 21106-21121 (2014)
  27. Patrick P. Lu, Ke-Xun Sun, Robert L. Byer, Jerald A. Britten, Hoang T. Nguyen, James D. Nissen, Cindy C. Larson, Michael D. Aasen, Thomas C. Carlson, and Curly R. Hoaglan, "Precise diffraction efficiency measurements of large-area greater-than-99%-efficient dielectric gratings at the Littrow angle," Opt. Lett. 34, 1708-1710 (2009)
  28. Keiko Kokeyama, Kiwamu Izumi, William Z. Korth, Nicolas Smith-Lefebvre, Koji Arai, and Rana X. Adhikari, "Residual amplitude modulation in interferometric gravitational wave detectors," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 31, 81-88 (2014)
  29. Guido Mueller, Qi-ze Shu, Rana Adhikari, D. B. Tanner, David Reitze, Daniel Sigg, Nergis Mavalvala, and Jordan Camp, "Determination and optimization of mode matching into optical cavities by heterodyne detection," Opt. Lett. 25, 266-268 (2000)
  30. Pablo Barriga, Biplab Bhawal, Li Ju, and David G. Blair, "Numerical calculations of diffraction losses in advanced interferometric gravitational wave detectors," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 24, 1731-1741 (2007)
  31. Katherine L. Dooley, Lisa Barsotti, Rana X. Adhikari, Matthew Evans, Tobin T. Fricke, Peter Fritschel, Valera Frolov, Keita Kawabe, and Nicolás Smith-Lefebvre, "Angular control of optical cavities in a radiation-pressure-dominated regime: the Enhanced LIGO case," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 30, 2618-2626 (2013)
  32. Shuichi Sato, Masatake Ohashi, Masa-Katsu Fujimoto, Mitsuhiro Fukushima, Koichi Waseda, Shinji Miyoki, Nergis Mavalvala, and Hiroaki Yamamoto, "High-gain power recycling of a Fabry–Perot Michelson interferometer for a gravitational-wave antenna," Appl. Opt. 39, 4616-4620 (2000)
  33. Daniel Sigg, Nergis Mavalvala, Joseph Giaime, Peter Fritschel, and David Shoemaker, "Signal extraction in a power-recycled Michelson interferometer with Fabry–Perot arm cavities by use of a multiple-carrier frontal modulation scheme," Appl. Opt. 37, 5687-5693 (1998)
  34. Fabian Magaña-Sandoval, Rana X. Adhikari, Valera Frolov, Jan Harms, Jacqueline Lee, Shannon Sankar, Peter R. Saulson, and Joshua R. Smith, "Large-angle scattered light measurements for quantum-noise filter cavity design studies," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 29, 1722-1727 (2012)
  35. Malik Rakhmanov, "Demodulation of intensity and shot noise in the optical heterodyne detection of laser interferometers for gravitational waves," Appl. Opt. 40, 6596-6605 (2001)
  36. Shailendhar Saraf, Robert L. Byer, and Peter J. King, "High-extinction-ratio resonant cavity polarizer for quantum-optics measurements," Appl. Opt. 46, 3850-3855 (2007)
  37. D. E. McClelland, J. B. Camp, J. Mason, W. Kells, and S. E. Whitcomb, "Arm cavity resonant sideband control for laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors," Opt. Lett. 24, 1014-1016 (1999)
  38. Andri M. Gretarsson, Erika D'Ambrosio, Valery Frolov, Brian O'Reilly, and Peter K. Fritschel, "Effects of mode degeneracy in the LIGO Livingston Observatory recycling cavity," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 24, 2821-2828 (2007)
  39. Raymond G. Beausoleil, Eric K. Gustafson, Martin M. Fejer, Erika D’Ambrosio, William Kells, and Jordan Camp, "Model of thermal wave-front distortion in interferometric gravitational- wave detectors. I. Thermal focusing," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20, 1247-1268 (2003)
  40. Guido Mueller, "Beam jitter coupling in advanced LIGO," Opt. Express 13, 7118-7132 (2005)
  41. Brian Lantz, Peter Fritschel, Haisheng Rong, Ed Daw, and Gabriela González, "Quantum-limited optical phase detection at the 10-10-rad level," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 19, 91-100 (2002)
  42. Eiichi Hirose, Keita Kawabe, Daniel Sigg, Rana Adhikari, and Peter R. Saulson, "Angular instability due to radiation pressure in the LIGO gravitational-wave detector," Appl. Opt. 49, 3474-3484 (2010)
  43. Nergis Mavalvala, Daniel Sigg, and David Shoemaker, "Experimental test of an alignment-sensing scheme for a gravitational-wave interferometer," Appl. Opt. 37, 7743-7746 (1998)
  44. Kentaro Somiya, Peter Beyersdorf, Koji Arai, Shuichi Sato, Seiji Kawamura, Osamu Miyakawa, Fumiko Kawazoe, Shihori Sakata, Aya Sekido, and Norikatsu Mio, "Development of a frequency-detuned interferometer as a prototype experiment for next-generation gravitational-wave detectors," Appl. Opt. 44, 3179-3191 (2005)
  45. Torrey T. Lyons, Martin W. Regehr, and Frederick J. Raab, "Shot noise in gravitational-wave detectors with Fabry–Perot arms," Appl. Opt. 39, 6761-6770 (2000)
  46. Peter Fritschel, Matthew Evans, and Valery Frolov, "Balanced homodyne readout for quantum limited gravitational wave detectors," Opt. Express 22, 4224-4234 (2014)
  47. Oleg V. Palashov, Dmitry S. Zheleznov, Alexander V. Voitovich, Victor V. Zelenogorsky, Eugene E. Kamenetsky, Efim A. Khazanov, Rodica M. Martin, Katherine L. Dooley, Luke Williams, Antonio Lucianetti, Volker Quetschke, Guido Mueller, David H. Reitze, David B. Tanner, Eric Genin, Benjamin Canuel, and Julien Marque, "High-vacuum-compatible high-power Faraday isolators for gravitational-wave interferometers," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 29, 1784-1792 (2012)
  48. Cinthia Padilla, Peter Fritschel, Fabian Magaña-Sandoval, Erik Muniz, Joshua R. Smith, and Liyuan Zhang, "Low scatter and ultra-low reflectivity measured in a fused silica window," Appl. Opt. 53, 1315-1321 (2014)
  49. Li-Wei Wei, Frédéric Cleva, and Catherine Nary Man, "Coherently combined master oscillator fiber power amplifiers for Advanced Virgo," Opt. Lett. 41, 5817-5820 (2016)