Thermal noise dependence on equatorial losses in the mirrors of an interferometric gravitational wave detector

Abstract

We present results from a simulation of inhomogenous losses from mirror suspension applicable to the next generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors. It is shown that localised surface losses may be as large as a loss angle ∼ ( 5 – 8 ) × 10 −3 but still have negligible contribution to the observed thermal noise in sapphire and silica test masses used on ACIGA's 80 m high optical power interferometer.