Thermal noise in mechanical experiments

Abstract

The fluctuation-dissipation theorem is applied to the case of low-dissipation mechanical oscillators, whose losses are dominated by processes occurring inside the material of which the oscillators are made. In the common case of losses described by a complex spring constant with a constant imaginary part, the thermal noise displacement power spectrum is steeper by one power of $\ensuremath{\omega}$ than is predicted by a velocity-damping model. I construct models for the thermal noise spectra of systems with more than one mode of vibration, and evaluate a model of a specific design of pendulum suspension for the test masses in a gravitational-wave interferometer.