Whatever Happened to the Bell V Interferometer for Gravitational Waves?

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SUMMARY

The Bell V Interferometer, which aimed to utilize a massive neodymium bar for gravitational wave detection, was ultimately abandoned due to insufficient sensitivity. The bar detectors failed to detect gravitational waves, prompting a shift to long Michelson Interferometer detectors, which are now the standard. The discussion highlights the challenges of noise reduction and signal extraction encountered during the development of this technology.

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houlahound
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Decades ago a massive neodymium bar was going to be used for measuring GW's.

I know noise was a problem. Anyone know what happened to this technology?

Sounded cool, a big bell at the resonance frequency of a GW.
 
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The bar detectors were never sensitive enough by many orders of magnitude, so no gravitational waves were ever detected. That is why we switched to long Michelson Interferometer detectors.
 
cheers, thought it would be something on those lines.

still a bold idea, they must have learned a lot about noise reduction and signal extraction in the process I would imagine.
 

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