Stable Operation of a 300-m Laser Interferometer with Sufficient Sensitivity to Detect Gravitational-Wave Events within Our Galaxy

TAMA300, an interferometric gravitational-wave detector with 300-m baseline length, has been developed and operated with sufficient sensitivity to detect gravitational-wave events within our galaxy and sufficient stability for observations; the interferometer was operated for over 10 hours stably and continuously. With a strain-equivalent noise level of $h\sim 5\times {10}^{-21\mathrm{}}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$, a signal-to-noise ratio of 30 is expected for gravitational waves generated by a coalescence of ${1.4M}_{\odot }-{1.4M}_{\odot }$ binary neutron stars at 10 kpc distance. We evaluated the stability of the detector sensitivity with a 2-week data-taking run, collecting 160 hours of data to be analyzed in the search for gravitational waves.