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At that distance, you have to include nonlinear near-field effects.lpetrich said:The event's peak gravitational strain at the Earth was about 10-21. Since (strain) ~ 1/(distance), we can extrapolate it back to where it was roughly 1. The distance to the event's source is roughly 1.2*1025 m. So the strain = 1 distance is 104 m or 10 km.
The Sun has a Schwarzschild or black-hole radius of about 3.0 km, and the final black hole thus has one of about 190 km. Thus, the maximum G-wave strain near there was about 1/20.
The mirrors are suspended by a set of 4 consecutive pendulums, which provide passive damping. In addition, seismic motion is actively canceled by moving the point where they are suspended.Yashbhatt said:Can anyone explain in simple terms the way in which the LIGO managed to keep the mirrors so still?