Real-time Simulation of a Suspended Cavity with the Advanced LIGO Digital Controls System

LIGO is a collaboration brought together by the goal of detecting gravitational waves sent out by especially massive, quickly-moving objects. An integral part of LIGO's interferometers are the Fabry-Perot cavities in the arms. Modeling them can show us how well we understand the noise in addition to serving as a test of the control system used to keep the interferometer in resonance. While time-domain simulations of the cavity have been done, a real-time model would provide a better comparison point for the noise while accurately simulating the cavity response. This presentation outlines such a real-time model, as well as a comparison between the results of the ``fake'' (or simulated) cavity and the ``real'' cavity. The closer these results are to each other, the more successful we count our model as an accurate representation of the real-life noise and mechanics in a Fabry-Perot cavity.