VERSION-1.

This is 49 words. It is specific about the laser etc but also makes the connection to 
the sinusoidal modes. Except for the last few words, very direct, factual, informative. 
Doesn't mention what was done with the sinusoidal modes!

We created Hermite-Gauss (HG) modes up to order 9 by carefully manipulating a 10-micron 
wire in the intra-cavity beam of a HeNe laser. These modes were converted to 
Laguerre-Gauss (LG) modes with cylinder lenses and interfered to produce sinusoidal 
cylindrical modes, which are of current interest for gravity-wave research.

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VERSION-2.

Under 50 words, but doesn't mention sinusoidal modes at all. But the "intensity and 
phase structure" part alludes to the interferometer and camera studies. "rich variety" 
could be replaced by some other words.

We studied the intensity and phase structure of a rich variety of Gaussian laser modes 
by transforming and interfering Hermite-Gauss modes up to order 9 created by carefully 
manipulating a 10-micron wire in the intra-cavity beam of a HeNe laser.

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VERSION-3.

The perspective in this version is to introduce sinusoidal modes ... the mathematics not 
the application. The first sentence harks back to our conversations when that first 
LIGO-related paper was presented (by Marcus?) and Hal's comments. (And my not 
understanding that one can actually make these modes.) But I'm not sure about the truth 
of the statement. Does one also need cosine modes to have a complete basis set? 50 
words. As usual I show the two sentences separated.


Sinusoidal Gaussian laser modes form an alternative complete basis set similar to 
Laguerre-Gauss modes but without a central phase singularity.

We studied the intensity and phase structure of such modes created by transforming HG 
modes from an open-cavity HeNe laser into LG modes and interfering these with their 
mirror images.

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VERSION-4. 

50 words. Doesn't describe sinusoidal modes but does point out why they are currently
interesting. Also doesn't allude to the large number of HG modes produced. This can of
course be covered in the presentation.

We constructed a two-stage Mach-Zehnder interferometer and used it to study the 
intensity and phase structure of Laguerre-Gauss (LG) and sinusoidal LG modes; the latter 
are of current interest for gravitational wave astronomy. The LG modes were created by 
transforming Hermite-Gauss modes from an open-cavity HeNe laser with cylinder lenses.