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Physics, Instrumentation and Detectors, physics.ins-det,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
Low mass suspension systems with high-Q pendulum stages are used to enable
quantum radiation pressure noise limited experiments. Utilising multiple
pendulum stages with vertical blade springs and materials with high quality
factors provides attenuation of seismic and thermal noise, however damping of
these high-Q pendulum systems in multiple degrees of freedom is essential for
practical implementation. Viscous damping such as eddy-current damping can be
employed but introduces displacement noise from force noise due to thermal
fluctuations in the damping system. In this paper we demonstrate a passive
damping system with adjustable damping strength as a solution for this problem
that can be used for low mass suspension systems without adding additional
displacement noise in science mode. We show a reduction of the damping factor
by a factor of 8 on a test suspension and provide a general optimisation for
this system.
