A scalable, symmetric atom interferometer for infrasound gravitational wave detection
C. Schubert, Dennis Schlippert, Matthias Gersemann, Sven Abend, Enno Giese, Albert Roura, Wolfgang P. Schleich, W. Ertmer, Ernst M. Rasel
Abstract
We propose a terrestrial detector for gravitational waves with frequencies between 0.3 and 5 Hz based on atom interferometry. As key elements, we discuss two symmetric matter-wave interferometers, the first one with a single loop and the second one featuring a folded triple-loop geometry. The latter eliminates the need for atomic ensembles at femtokelvin energies imposed by the Sagnac effect in other atom interferometric detectors. The folded triple-loop geometry also combines several advantages of current vertical and horizontal matter wave antennas and enhances the scalability in order to achieve a peak strain sensitivity of 2×10−21/Hz.