Losses in pendular suspension due to centrifugal coupling

Abstract

We present an analysis of the centrifugal coupling of simple pendulum to a dissipative support. We show that such a coupling leads to an amplitude dependent quality factor. For amplitudes which could be present in laser interferometer gravitational wave detector suspension, this mechanism could limit the quality factor of the test mass suspension significantly to 1010 and should be considered in the design of advanced LIGO type detectors.