During the introductory Workshop, we covered the fundamentals of what Finesse is, and how to use it to model some simple (and less simple) features of optical systems. However, there is still a lot more to learn about both optical systems and Finesse!

In this mentoring period between the Workshop and Hackathon, you will be provided with several more notebooks to help you learn this additional material, and move from working through exercises to becoming independent, skilled modellers.

We will add material here gradually, and notify you when there is something new. You should expect new material to appear here every couple of weeks, and to spend roughly 4 hours a week working on it. You should post any questions, comments, and interesting results to the sandbox. Discuss your work with your team mates and assigned mentor, and send your mentor your completed notebooks for feedback. Answers will be posted shortly after that.

Good luck!

Notebooks

From Michelson to DRFPMi: exploring the aLIGO layout in a little more depth

This notebook is mostly a reminder of where we left off at the Workshop. We return to our simplified Advanced LIGO model, and explore the effects of introducing each of the key new optics as we evolve the design from a simple Michelson to a Dual Recycled Michelson Interferometer with Fabry Perot arm cavities.

Introduction to Gaussian Beams

So far we have used the plane waves model to describe optical fields. This is sufficient for describing the behaviours we have explored so far, but is limited and not really physically accurate. A more complete picture is achieved by also describing the transverse properties of the field – i.e. that it is a beam, with a shape that depends on the things it encounters as it propagates. In this notebook we will introduce Gaussian beams and explore the new properties and behaviours this results in.

Answer Notebooks