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Phys. Rev. A 72, 043819 (2005) [15 pages]

Photothermal fluctuations as a fundamental limit to low-frequency squeezing in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator

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Keisuke Goda1, Kirk McKenzie2, Eugeniy E. Mikhailov1, Ping Koy Lam3, David E. McClelland2, and Nergis Mavalvala1
1LIGO Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
2Center for Gravitational Physics, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia
3Quantum Optics Group, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia

Received 8 June 2005; published 24 October 2005

We study the effect of photothermal fluctuations on squeezed states of light through the photo-refractive effect and thermal expansion in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator (OPO). We also discuss the effect of the photothermal noise in various cases and how to minimize its undesirable consequences. We find that the photothermal noise in the OPO introduces a significant amount of noise on phase squeezed beams, making them less than ideal for low-frequency applications such as gravitational wave (GW) interferometers, whereas amplitude squeezed beams are relatively immune to the photothermal noise and may represent the best choice for application in GW interferometers.


©2005 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043819
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043819
PACS: 42.50.Dv, 04.80.Nn, 03.65.Ta, 95.55.Ym

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