Georgia Mansell

Assistant Professor in Physics, Syracuse University

Hello and welcome to my website!

Panorama of Rattlesnake Mountain and the LIGO beam tube — Rattlesnake Mountain (Lalíik) and the LIGO Hanford X arm

Research

My research interests include:

Gravitational wave detectors and instrumentation
Optics
Interferometry
Quantum optics
Squeezed light
Control systems

I am an experimental physicist and my expertise is in gravitational wave detector instrumentation, commissioning, and squeezed states of light. I am currently based at the LIGO Hanford Observatory in Washington, and will come to Syracuse in 2023. My lab at Syracuse will focus on developing technologies for future gravitational-wave detectors, like cosmic explorer. Future gravitational wave detectors promise to have even greater sensitivity than the current generation. To achieve this they will need higher circulating power, which will require a next-generation thermal compensation system. In addition, improved quantum noise reduction schemes will be required. In my lab we will work on tabletop experiments demonstrating these principles.

Selected publications

V. Srivastava, G. Mansell, C. Makarem, et al Piezo-deformable mirrors for active mode matching in advanced LIGO, Opt. Express 30, 10491-10501 (2022)

C. Cahillane, G. Mansell, D. Sigg, Laser frequency noise in next generation gravitational-wave detectors, Opt. Express 29, 42144-42161 (2021)

A. Buikema, C. Cahillane, G. Mansell, C. Blair, LIGO instrument scientists, Sensitivity and Performance of the Advanced LIGO Detectors in the Third Observing Run, Phys. Rev. D 102, 062003 (2020)

S. Biscans, S, Gras, C. Blair, J. Driggers, M. Evans, P. Fritschel, T. Hardwick, G. Mansell, Suppressing parametric instabilities in LIGO using low-noise acoustic mode dampers”, Phys. Rev. D 100, 122003 (2019)

G. Mansell, T. McRae, P. Altin, M. Yap, R. Ward, B. Slagmolen, D. Shaddock, and D. McClelland, Observation of Squeezed Light in the 2 um Region, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 203603 (2018)

A. Wade, G. Mansell, S. Chua, R. Ward, B. Slagmolen, D. Shaddock, D. McClelland, A squeezed light source operated under high vacuum, Scientific Reports 5, (2015) 18052

CV

Please find my latest CV here