No Arabic abstract
Gravitational waves are perturbations of the metric of space-time. Six polarizations are possible, although general relativity predicts that only two such polarizations, tensor plus and tensor cross are present for gravitational waves. We give the analytical formulas for the antenna response functions for the six polarizations which are valid for any equal-arm interferometric gravitational-wave detectors without optical cavities in the arms.The response function averaged over the source direction and polarization angle decreases at high frequencies which deteriorates the signal-to-noise ratio registered in the detector. At high frequencies, the averaged response functions for the tensor and breathing modes fall of as $1/f^2$, the averaged response function for the longitudinal mode falls off as $1/f$ and the averaged response function for the vector mode falls off as $ln(f)/f^2$.
The discovery of gravitational waves, which are ripples of space-time itself, opened a new window to test general relativity, because it predicts that there are only plus and cross polarizations for gravitational waves. For alternative theories of gravity, there may be up to six polarizations. The measurement of the polarization is one of the major scientific goals for future gravitational wave detectors. To evaluate the capability of the detector, we need to use the frequency dependent response functions averaged over the source direction and polarization angle. We derive the full analytical formulas of the averaged response functions for all six possible polarizations and present their asymptotic behaviors based on these analytical formulas. Compared with the numerical simulation, the full analytical formulas are more efficient and valid for any equal-arm interferometric gravitational wave detector without optical cavities in the arms and for a time-delay-interferometry Michelson combination.
Space-based gravitational wave detectors cannot keep rigid structures and precise arm length equality, so the precise equality of detector arms which is required in a ground-based interferometer to cancel the overwhelming laser noise is impossible. The time-delay interferometry method is applied to unequal arm lengths to cancel the laser frequency noise. We give analytical formulas of the averaged response functions for tensor, vector, breathing and longitudinal polarizations in different TDI combinations, and obtain their asymptotic behaviors. At low frequencies, $fll f_*$, the averaged response functions of all TDI combinations increase as $f^2$ for all six polarizations. The one exception is the averaged response functions of $zeta$ for all six polarizations increase as $f^4$ in the equilateral-triangle case. At high frequencies, $fgg f_*$, the averaged response functions of all TDI combinations for the tensor and breathing modes fall off as $1/f^2$, the averaged response functions of all TDI combinations for the vector mode fall off as $ln(f)/f^2$ , and the averaged response functions of all TDI combinations for the longitudinal mode fall as $1/f$. We also give LISA and TianQin sensitivity curves in different TDI combinations for tensor, vector, breathing and longitudinal polarizations.
We rigorously analyze the frequency response functions and antenna sensitivity patterns of three types of interferometric detectors to scalar mode of gravitational waves which is predicted to exist in the scalar-tensor theory of gravity. By a straightforward treatment, we show that the antenna sensitivity pattern of the simple Michelson interferometric detector depends strongly on the wave length $lambda_{rm SGW}$ of the scalar mode of gravitational waves if $lambda_{rm SGW}$ is comparable to the arm length of the interferometric detector. For the Delay-Line and Fabry-Perot interferometric detectors with arm length much shorter than $lambda_{rm SGW}$, however, the antenna sensitivity patterns depend weakly on $lambda_{rm SGW}$ even though $lambda_{rm SGW}$ is comparable to the effective path length of those interferometers. This agrees with the result obtained by Maggiore and Nicolis.
Direct detection of gravitational radiation in the audio band is being pursued with a network of kilometer-scale interferometers (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA). Several space missions (LISA, DECIGO, BBO) have been proposed to search for sub-Hz radiation from massive astrophysical sources. Here we examine the potential sensitivity of three ground-based detector concepts aimed at radiation in the 0.1 -- 10,Hz band. We describe the plethora of potential astrophysical sources in this band and make estimates for their event rates and thereby, the sensitivity requirements for these detectors. The scientific payoff from measuring astrophysical gravitational waves in this frequency band is great. Although we find no fundamental limits to the detector sensitivity in this band, the remaining technical limits will be extremely challenging to overcome.
Thermal noise is expected to be the dominant source of noise in the most sensitive frequency band of second generation ground based gravitational wave detectors. Reshaping the beam to a flatter wider profile which probes more of the mirror surface reduces this noise. The Mesa beam shape has been proposed for this purpose and was subsequently generalized to a family of hyperboloidal beams with two parameters: twist angle alpha and beam width D. Varying alpha allows a continuous transition from the nearly-flat to the nearly-concentric Mesa beam configurations. We analytically prove that in the limit of infinite D hyperboloidal beams become Gaussians. The Advanced LIGO diffraction loss design constraint is 1 ppm per bounce. In the past the diffraction loss has often been calculated using the clipping approximation that, in general, underestimates the diffraction loss. We develop a code using pseudo-spectral methods to compute the diffraction loss directly from the propagator. We find that the diffraction loss is not a strictly monotonic function of beam width, but has local minima that occur due to finite mirror effects and leads to natural choices of D. For the Mesa beam a local minimum occurs at D = 10.67 cm and leads to a diffraction loss of 1.4 ppm. We find that if one requires a diffraction loss of strictly 1 ppm, the alpha = 0.91 pi hyperboloidal beam is optimal, leading to the coating thermal noise being lower by about 10% than for a Mesa beam while other types of thermal noise decrease as well. We then develop an iterative process that reconstructs the mirror to specifically account for finite mirror effects. This allows us to increase the D parameter and lower the coating noise by about 30% compared to the original Mesa configuration.