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Zeke137
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- TL;DR Summary
- A group at Northwestern University is starting work on a gravitational-wave detector small enough to fit on a table-top and which uses levitated sensors to detect gravitational waves at frequencies higher than those detectable by current detectors.
The group is led by Andrew Geraci, an associate professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences .
It would appear that the sensors employ optically-trapped microspheres or microdiscs, the positions of which can be measured to microns or better as these images from Northwestern suggest:
Fig. 1 - High frequency gravitational wave detection with levitated sensors
Fig. 2 - Testing gravity at micron distances with optically trapped microspheres Just found this paper on arxiv by Geraci and Arvanitaki from 2013, which lays the groundwork for the proposed detector: Detecting high-frequency gravitational waves with optically-levitated sensors . The paper suggests that the detector would have
It would appear that the sensors employ optically-trapped microspheres or microdiscs, the positions of which can be measured to microns or better as these images from Northwestern suggest:
Fig. 1 - High frequency gravitational wave detection with levitated sensors
Fig. 2 - Testing gravity at micron distances with optically trapped microspheres Just found this paper on arxiv by Geraci and Arvanitaki from 2013, which lays the groundwork for the proposed detector: Detecting high-frequency gravitational waves with optically-levitated sensors . The paper suggests that the detector would have
If somebody knows more about this project, I'm sure the folks here at PF would like to know more....improved sensitivity in the frequency range of 50−300 kHz that does not rely on a shot-noise limited displacement measurement of test mass mirrors, but rather depends on a precision force measurement on the resonant harmonically trapped sensor.
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