Scattered light noise in gravitational wave interferometric detectors: A statistical approach

The sensitivity of interferometric detectors of gravitational waves such as LIGO or VIRGO could eventually be limited by the noise due to scattered light propagation and rescattering in the long vacuum pipes containing the laser beams. We propose a statistical method for evaluating scattered light noise and compare trapping systems, easy to implement in Monte Carlo simulation codes. [S0556-2821(97)07622-4].