Status of the commissioning of the Virgo interferometer

Long baseline optical interferometry is a promising technique for the detection of gravitational waves [1], [2], [3], [4]. The French-Italian detector Virgo is a Michelson interferometer with 3 km arms, equipped with high storage time Fabry-Perot cavities. In this kind of detectors, the passage of gravitational waves would be sensed as a differential length variation of the arms. After the end of the second Virgo Science Run, lasting from July 2009 to the beginning of January 2010, some important upgrades have been carried out; in particular, the mirrors of the Fabry-Perot cavities, which act as test masses of the detector, have been replaced by new ones with an higher reflectivity, which should increase by three times the finesse of the cavities; moreover the mirrors are now suspended by silica fibers in a monolithic assembly expected to significantly lower the thermal noise. Finally, the digital signal processing electronics and the global control system have been largely improved. We will present the s...