Advanced LIGO subsystems
are the organizational units of the overall project. Follow the links below to view the mission and progress of each subsystem.
Auxiliary Optics Core Optics
 
Data Acquisition Data and
Computing
Systems
 
Facilities
Modifications		 Input Optics
 
Interferometer
Control		 Pre-Stabilized
Laser
 
Seismic
Isolation		 Suspensions

Advanced LIGO News

New Laser Enclosures Take Shape

February 2011

[news]Prior to entering the vacuum system, LIGO's laser light passes from the main lasers through a number of additional optical components on long optical tables. The contents of these tables, including the lasers themselves, comprise the "Pre-Stabilized Laser" subsystem, or PSL. The Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) PSL makes up the only portion of a detector that will reside outside the vacuum once the detector reaches "science mode," its most sensitive operating state. In order for the PSL to deliver ultra-stable light into the vacuum, aLIGO will employ PSL enclosures of far greater size and thickness than their Initial LIGO predecessors. The iLIGO enclosures were cabinet-like structures on legs. The aLIGO enclosures are walled-in rooms with ceilings up to 13 feet in height that will offer improved acoustic shielding and a higher level of contamination control. The PSL tables are those from Initial LIGO but the tables will rest on new legs (hollow and filled with tiny glass beads) that reduce table vibrations.

Readers can easily imagine that the construction of small houses inside LIGO's Laser and Vacuum Equipment Areas (LVEA's) limits the extent of sensitive work that can occur in other areas of the LVEA's. aLIGO schedulers must factor the impacts of PSL enclosure production into their overall work flows. Surgery wouldn't seem desirable on a day when bolt holes were being drilled in the operating room floor. Similarly, LIGO needs to segregate noisy construction tasks from sensitive alignment and installation activities in the project schedule.

Image 1:  PSL table moving from temporary storage to final location.

Image 2:  Landing the table on new aLIGO legs.

Image 3:  The acoustic enclosure.

Image 4:  Additional space for clean prep.

Image 5:  The door is on.

Image 6:  Nearing completion with HEPA filtering undergoing installation.

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