No Arabic abstract
We describe an atom interferometric gravitational wave detector design that can operate in a resonant mode for increased sensitivity. By oscillating the positions of the atomic wavepackets, this resonant detection mode allows for coherently enhanced, narrow-band sensitivity at target frequencies. The proposed detector is flexible and can be rapidly switched between broadband and narrow-band detection modes. For instance, a binary discovered in broadband mode can subsequently be studied further as the inspiral evolves by using a tailored narrow-band detector response. In addition to functioning like a lock-in amplifier for astrophysical events, the enhanced sensitivity of the resonant approach also opens up the possibility of searching for important cosmological signals, including the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by inflation. We give an example of detector parameters which would allow detection of inflationary gravitational waves down to $Omega_text{GW} sim 10^{-14}$ for a two satellite space-based detector.
We present the perspective of using atom interferometry for gravitational wave (GW) detection in the mHz to about 10 Hz frequency band. We focus on light-pulse atom interferometers which have been subject to intense developments in the last 25 years. We calculate the effect of the GW on the atom interferometer and present in details the atomic gradiometer configuration which has retained more attention recently. The principle of such a detector is to use free falling atoms to measure the phase of a laser, which is modified by the GW. We highlight the potential benefits of using atom interferometry compared to optical interferometry as well as the challenges which remain for the realization of an atom interferometry based GW detector. We present some of the important noise sources which are expected in such detectors and strategies to cirucumvent them. Experimental techniques related to cold atom interferometers are briefly explained. We finally present the current progress and projects in this rapidly evolving field.
We propose a space-based gravitational wave detector consisting of two spatially separated, drag-free satellites sharing ultra-stable optical laser light over a single baseline. Each satellite contains an optical lattice atomic clock, which serves as a sensitive, narrowband detector of the local frequency of the shared laser light. A synchronized two-clock comparison between the satellites will be sensitive to the effective Doppler shifts induced by incident gravitational waves (GWs) at a level competitive with other proposed space-based GW detectors, while providing complementary features. The detected signal is a differential frequency shift of the shared laser light due to the relative velocity of the satellites, and the detection window can be tuned through the control sequence applied to the atoms internal states. This scheme enables the detection of GWs from continuous, spectrally narrow sources, such as compact binary inspirals, with frequencies ranging from ~3 mHz - 10 Hz without loss of sensitivity, thereby bridging the detection gap between space-based and terrestrial optical interferometric GW detectors. Our proposed GW detector employs just two satellites, is compatible with integration with an optical interferometric detector, and requires only realistic improvements to existing ground-based clock and laser technologies.
We propose a new method to detect gravitational waves, based on spatial coherence interferometry with stellar light, as opposed to the conventional temporal coherence interferometry with laser sources. The proposed method detects gravitational waves by using two coherent beams of light from a single distant star measured at separate space-based detectors with a long baseline. This method can be applied to either the amplitude or intensity interferometry. This experiment allows for the search of gravitational waves in the lower frequency range of $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-4}$ Hz. In this work, we present the detection sensitivity of the proposed stellar interferometer by taking the detector response and shot and acceleration noises into account. Furthermore, the proposed experimental setup is capable of searching for primordial black holes and studying the size of the target neutron star, which are also discussed in the paper.
Modern ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors require a complex interferometer configuration with multiple coupled optical cavities. Since achieving the resonances of the arm cavities is the most challenging among the lock acquisition processes, the scheme called arm length stabilization (ALS) had been employed for lock acquisition of the arm cavities. We designed a new type of the ALS, which is compatible with the interferometers having long arms like the next generation GW detectors. The features of the new ALS are that the control configuration is simpler than those of previous ones and that it is not necessary to lay optical fibers for the ALS along the kilometer-long arms of the detector. Along with simulations of its noise performance, an experimental test of the new ALS was performed utilizing a single arm cavity of KAGRA. This paper presents the first results of the test where we demonstrated that lock acquisition of the arm cavity was achieved using the new ALS and residual noise was measured to be $8.2,mathrm{Hz}$ in units of frequency, which is smaller than the linewidth of the arm cavity and thus low enough to lock the full interferometer of KAGRA in a repeatable and reliable manner.
Quantum computational devices, currently under development, have the potential to accelerate data analysis techniques beyond the ability of any classical algorithm. We propose the application of a quantum algorithm for the detection of unknown signals in noisy data. We apply Grovers algorithm to matched-filtering, a signal processing technique that compares data to a number of candidate signal templates. In comparison to the classical method, this provides a speed-up proportional to the square-root of the number of templates, which would make possible otherwise intractable searches. We demonstrate both a proof-of-principle quantum circuit implementation, and a simulation of the algorithms application to the detection of the first gravitational wave signal GW150914. We discuss the time complexity and space requirements of our algorithm as well as its implications for the currently computationally-limited searches for continuous gravitational waves.