Measurements of the Young’s modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds, and the effect on thermal noise in ground-based gravitational wave detectors

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With the outstanding results from the detection and observation of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes and neutron star inspirals, it is essential that pathways to further improve the sensitivities of the LIGO and VIRGO detectors are explored. There are a number of factors that potentially limit the sensitivities of the detectors. One such factor is thermal noise, a component of which results from the mechanical loss in the bond material between the silica fibre suspensions and the test mass mirrors. To calculate its magnitude, the Young's modulus of the bond material has to be known with reasonable accuracy. In this paper we present a new combination of ultrasonic technology and Bayesian analysis to measure the Young's modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds between fused silica substrates. Using this novel technique, we measure the bond Young's modulus to be 18.5±2.32.0 GPa. We show that by applying this value to thermal noise models of bonded test masses with suitable attachment geometries, a reduction in suspension thermal noise consistent with an overall design sensitivity improvement allows a factor of 5 increase in event rate to be achieved.