For LIGO Magazine, it's envisioned that we'll have some kind of regular "How does it work?" feature, which will explain various concepts in gravitational wave detection making liberal use of nice illustrations. This is a list of some concepts we might consider illustrating in this way.
- gravitational waves
- Michelson interferometer as GW detector
- multiple GW detectors as interferometric detector network
- resonant bar detector
- Robert Forward's interferometer
- pulsar timing for GW detection
- Hulse-Taylor pulsar system
- black holes
- pulsars
- stochastic background
- gravitational wave polarization
- other sources of GWs: what they are, how we search for them
- tidal forces on the interferometer
- the laser
- NPRO
- delay line
- resonant cavity
- dielectric coatings
- dichroic dielectric coatings
- phase modulation
- wavefront sensors (WFS)
- optical levers
- acousto-optic modulators (AOM)
- electro-optic modulators (EOM)
- Faraday isolators
- mirror polishing
- mirrors: from raw materials to ligo optics
- Hermite-Gauss / Laguerre Gauss / spatial modes
- intensity stabilization servo
- the Sigg-Sidles effect (angular optical spring)
- FFT-based wavefront propagation (simulation technique)
- Hartmann sensors
- speed meter
- thermal compensation system (TCS)
- green-laser arm locking system (ALS)
- power recycling
- signal recycling
- scattered light
- interferometer sensing and control
- DC readout
- mode cleaner cavities
- homodyne detection
- heterodyne detection / pound-drever-hall sensing
- calibration
- fast-fourier transform
- power spectra, Welch's method
- analog-to-digital conversion
- anti-aliasing, Nyquist theorem
- quantization noise
- transfer function
- poles and zeros
- Butterworth / Chebyschev/ Elliptical filters
- squeezed light
- squeezer
- ponderomotive squeezing
- coating thermal noise
- Newtonian noise
- shot noise
- radiation pressure
- radiation pressure noise
- standard quantum limit
- fluctuation-dissipation theorem
- photodiode
- op-amps, active filters
- differential signaling
- ground loops
- suspensions / pendulum as isolation
- mirror ears
- seismic isolation - passive
- seismic isolation - active
- seismic noise, the seismic environment
- OSEMS
- electrostatic drive
- the superattenuator
- GAS filters
- inverted pendula
- the microseism
- capacitive displacement sensors
- LVDTs
- seismometers / accelerometers
- feedback control
- dither locking / synchronous modulation-demodulation
- digital filtering
- feed-forward
- Wiener filtering
- LIGO front-ends
- vacuum pumps
- residual gas analyzer (RGA)
- FTIR spectroscopy
- residual gas damping
- GRACE - general concept
- LISA
- Grace follow-on (optical setup)
- drag-free satellites