Abstract
The levitated sensor detector (LSD) is a compact resonant gravitational-wave (GW) detector based on optically trapped dielectric particles that is under construction. The LSD sensitivity has more favorable frequency scaling at high frequencies compared to laser interferometer detectors such as LIGO and VIRGO. We propose a method to substantially improve the sensitivity by optically levitating a multilayered stack of dielectric discs. These stacks allow the use of a more massive levitated object while exhibiting minimal photon recoil heating due to light scattering. Over an order of magnitude of unexplored frequency space for GWs above 10 kHz is accessible with an instrument 10 to 100 meters in size. Particularly motivated sources in this frequency range are gravitationally bound states of the axion from quantum chromodynamics with decay constant near the grand unified theory scale that form through black hole superradiance and annihilate to GWs. The LSD is also sensitive to GWs from binary coalescence of sub-solar-mass primordial black holes and as-yet unexplored new physics in the high-frequency GW window.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 111101 |
| Journal | Physical review letters |
| Volume | 128 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 18 2022 |
Funding
We would like to thank A. Arvanitaki and P. Barker for useful discussions. M.\u2009B. is supported by the James Arthur Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.\u2009T. is partially supported by the Stanford Physics Department Fellowship. A.\u2009G., G.\u2009W., and N.\u2009A. are supported in part by NSF Grants No. PHY-1806686 and No. PHY-1806671, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and ONR Grant No. N00014-18-1-2370. A.\u2009G. and S.\u2009L. are supported by the W.\u2009M. Keck Foundation. V.\u2009K. is supported by a CIFAR Senior Fellowship and through Northwestern University through the D.\u2009I. Linzer Distinguished University Professorship. N.\u2009A. is also supported by the CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern University. This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center through allocation TG-PHY190038, and the Quest computing facility at Northwestern.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy