Full modal simulation of opto-mechanical effects in optical systems

Abstract

The interaction of light with optical elements via radiation pressure plays a predominant role in determining the dynamics of many optical configurations, in particular when the mirrors composing the system have small masses or the light power is large. Gravitational wave interferometric detectors fall in the second category: opto-mechanical effects have been measured in first generation instruments and will be very relevant in second and third generations. So far, radiation pressure effects were studied using analytical models or simulation tools which were limited to specific optical systems or low order Hermite–Gauss modes. In this paper we present the first tool, to our knowledge, capable of a complete Hermite–Gauss modal simulation of radiation pressure induced effects, based on the modal interferometer simulation toolbox (MIST), described in details in a previous paper. This tool opens the possibility of the simulation of radiation pressure effects in realistic interferometric systems that include beam and optical element aberrations. The application of this tool to gravitational wave detectors will allow to better understand the incidence of realistic optical defects on the instrument operation and sensitivity. We also expect that this tool will be useful outside the gravitational wave community, for application on interferometric systems where radiation pressure dynamics is dominant, such as opto-mechanically-induced transparency, light mirror cavities and membrane-in-a-cavity systems. In this paper we describe the formalism used to implement radiation pressure in the MIST simulation tool and we give some example applications, including the first results on parametric instabilities in Fabry–Perot cavities based on a complete modal optical simulation.

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