A reflection interferometer with transmission-like characteristics as an element of interferometric gravitational wave detectors

It is proposed to replace the Fabry-Perot interferometers incorporated into the combined Fabry-Perot-Michelson interferometer (FPMI) by transmission-like reflection interferometers (TRIs), creating bright (transmission-like) interference fringes in the reflected light. TRIs employ asymmetric metal-dielectric mirrors with a "matching" absorbing layer. The calculations show that the shot noise-limited sensitivity of an FPMI with TRIs is nearly as high as that of a conventional FPMI (for the same quality of dielectric coatings). In the presence of scattered light or when the laser and interferometer modes are not coupled well enough, the new version of the FPMI offers considerable advantages due to the mode-filtering properties of a TRI. (C) 2005 Pleiades Publishing, Inc.