Engineering Run 13

Hey GravitySpy-ers,

We are excited to bring you new data from our Engineering Run 13! Data taken during Engineering Runs are meant to test not only some of our new upgrades to the detectors but some of our software (like Gravity Spy).

When

Dates: 10 am Central Time Dec 14 to 8 am Central Time Dec 18 (N.B. Due to some issues at the sites science ready data was not available until Saturday December 15)

What Detectors Are Running

Originally, we anticipated only having Hanford and Virgo due to critical repairs at Livingston. These repairs, however, completed yesterday and after a short delay Livingston has joined ER13. At first, we will be streaming in the data live for Hanford and Livingston over the weekend, and at a later date will add Virgo ER13 data to the Virgo only workflow.

What’s New

The sensitivity of the LHO detector has increased its range to detect binary neutron stars from 80Mpc to 90Mpc, LLO has increased to 100Mpc and Virgo has nearly doubled its range from 25 to 43Mpc. A number of different glitch classes have arisen and the engineering run is a golden opportunity to identify and eliminate these so we can be rid of them for the year long O3 run which is anticipated to start in March 2019.

Example: https://alog.ligo-la.caltech.edu/aLOG/index.php?callRep=41765

Some of the changes at both LHO and LLO that have led to this improvement include squeezed light and a new 70W laser amplifier that will improve LIGO’s quantum noise limit. In addition, Acoustic Mode Dampers will damp internal modes of the test masses to reduce parametric instability (light interacting with mirrors as positive feedback). Also, there was a change of several test masses to improve their coatings (especially for green light) and to remove a point absorber at LHO.

We look forward to your collections of interesting new glitches and for determining the cause of the new excess noise sources!

The Gravity Spy Team.