LOSSES IN PENDULAR SUSPENSIONS DUE TO CENTRIFUGAL COUPLING

We present an analysis of the centrifugal coupling of a simple pendulu m to a dissipative support. We show that such a coupling leads to an a mplitude dependent quality factor. For amplitudes which could be prese nt in laser interferometer gravitational wave detector suspensions, th is mechanism could limit the quality factor of the test mass suspensio n significantly to 10(10) and should be considered in the design of ad vanced LIGO type detectors.