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Title: A high precision, compact electromechanical ground rotation sensor

Journal Article · · Review of Scientific Instruments
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4875375· OSTI ID:22254875
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];
  1. LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, MS 100-36, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)
  2. Mayfield Senior School, 500 Bellefontaine Street, Pasadena, California 91105 (United States)
  3. Arcadia High School, 180 Campus Drive, Arcadia, California 91007 (United States)
  4. Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China)
  5. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)
  6. Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, 56127 Pisa (Italy)
  7. Sezione INFN Tor Vergata, via della Ricerca Scientifica  1, 00133 Roma (Italy)
  8. School of Physics, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009 (Australia)
  9. University of California, Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Ave, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
  10. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588 (Japan)

We present a mechanical rotation sensor consisting of a balance pivoting on a tungsten carbide knife edge. These sensors are important for precision seismic isolation systems, as employed in land-based gravitational wave interferometers and for the new field of rotational seismology. The position sensor used is an air-core linear variable differential transformer with a demonstrated noise floor of 1 × 10{sup −11}m/√( Hz ). We describe the instrument construction and demonstrate low noise operation with a noise floor upper bound of 5.7 × 10{sup −9} rad /√( Hz ) at 10 mHz and 6.4 × 10{sup −10} rad /√( Hz ) at 0.1 Hz. The performance of the knife edge hinge is compatible with a behaviorur free of noise from dislocation self-organized criticality.

OSTI ID:
22254875
Journal Information:
Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 85, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English