Do mirrors for gravitational waves exist?

Minter, Stephen J.; Wegter-McNelly, Kirk; Chiao, Raymond Y.

doi:10.1016/j.physe.2009.06.056

Cited by 36 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…It follows from this that a magnetic field must be generated by rotating a superconducting ring, i.e., that a "London moment" must accompany this rotation. Precision measurements of the London moment of a rotating SC ring thus provide a test for the correctness of the expression for the total AB phase in (33). Cabrera and co-workers [13] performed these measurements to 100 parts per million.…”

Section: Gravitational Aharonov-bohm Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect, and Its Connection to Parametric Oscillators and Gravitational Radiation

Chiao

Haun

Inan

et al. 2014

Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story

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A thought experiment is proposed to demonstrate the existence of a gravitational, vector AharonovBohm effect. We begin the analysis starting from four Maxwell-like equations for weak gravitational fields interacting with slowly moving matter. A connection is made between the gravitational, vector Aharonov-Bohm effect and the principle of local gauge invariance for nonrelativistic quantum matter interacting with weak gravitational fields. The compensating vector fields that are necessitated by this local gauge principle are shown to be incorporated by the DeWitt minimal coupling rule. The nonrelativistic Hamiltonian for weak, time-independent fields interacting with quantum matter is then extended to time-dependent fields, and applied to problem of the interaction of radiation with macroscopically coherent quantum systems, including the problem of gravitational radiation interacting with superconductors. But first we examine the interaction of EM radiation with superconductors in a parametric oscillator consisting of a superconducting wire placed at the center of a high Q superconducting cavity driven by pump microwaves. Some room-temperature data will be presented demonstrating the splitting of a single microwave cavity resonance into a spectral doublet due to the insertion of a central wire. This would represent an unseparated kind of parametric oscillator, in which the signal and idler waves would occupy the same volume of space. We then propose a separated parametric oscillator experiment, in which the signal and idler waves are generated in two disjoint regions of space, which are separated from each other by means of an impermeable superconducting membrane. We find that the threshold for parametric oscillation for EM microwave generation is much lower for the separated configuration than the unseparated one, which then leads to an observable dynamical Casimir effect. We speculate that a separated parametric oscillator for generating coherent GR microwaves could also be built.

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Section: Gravitational Aharonov-bohm Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the paper "Do mirrors for gravitational waves exist?" [33], it was predicted that even thin SC films are highly reflective mirrors for GR plane waves. This surprising prediction was based on the DeWitt minimal coupling rule (20) applied to the GinzburgLandau theory of superconductivity.…”

Section: The Dynamical Casimir Effect Via Parametric Oscillationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect, and Its Connection to Parametric Oscillators and Gravitational Radiation

Chiao

Haun

Inan

et al. 2014

Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story

Self Cite

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“…It is well known that ordinary materials can hardly reflect nor absorb gravitational waves [22], and thus the reflection coefficient for gravitational waves will be extremely small. However, recently, there have been interesting speculations that quantum matter such as superconducting films might behave like highly reflective mirrors that realize the Dirichlet boundary condition for gravitational waves, since the incident gravitational waves may be reflected effectively due to the so-called Heisenberg-Coulomb effect [23]. As for the Neumann boundary condition, we do not know of any specific physical setup that can realize it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum interaction between two gravitationally polarizable objects in the presence of boundaries

Zhao

2018

Phys. Rev. D

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We investigate, in the framework of the linearized quantum gravity and the leading-order perturbation theory, the quantum correction to the classical Newtonian interaction between a pair of gravitationally polarizable objects in the presence of both Neumann and Dirichlet boundaries. We obtain general results for the interaction potential and find that the presence of a boundary always strengthens in the leading-order the interaction as compared with the case in absence of boundaries. But different boundaries yield a different degree of strengthening. In the limit when one partner of the pair is placed very close to the Neumann boundary, the interaction potential is larger when the pair is parallel with the boundary than when it is perpendicular to, which is just opposite to the case when the boundary is Dirichlet where the latter is larger than the former. In addition, we find that the pair-boundary separation dependence of the higherorder correction term is determined by the orientation of the pair with respect to boundary, with the parallel case giving a quadratic behavior and the perpendicular case a linear one.

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“…1. By contrast, the Cooper pairs of electrons will remain coherent during free fall, since they are protected from decoherence by the BCS energy gap [7], and will therefore remain completely nonlocalizable, since they will remain in a zeromomentum eigenstate. This difference in the motion of the ions and of the Cooper pairs of electrons will then lead to the charge-separation effect indicated in Fig.…”

Section: A Superconducting Circuit Consisting Of Two Cubes Joined Cohmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the ions, which have undergone decoherence due to the environment [6,7], are completely localizable, and therefore, by the equivalence principle, will want to follow the free-fall trajectories that converge onto the center of the Earth shown in Fig. 1.…”

Section: A Superconducting Circuit Consisting Of Two Cubes Joined Cohmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum Incompressibility of a Falling Rydberg Atom, and a Gravitationally-Induced Charge Separation Effect in Superconducting Systems

et al. 2011

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Freely falling point-like objects converge toward the center of the Earth. Hence the gravitational field of the Earth is inhomogeneous, and possesses a tidal component. The free fall of an extended quantum mechanical object such as a hydrogen atom prepared in a high principal-quantum-number state, i.e. a circular Rydberg atom, is predicted to fall more slowly than a classical point-like object, when both objects are dropped from the same height above the Earth's surface. This indicates that, apart from transitions between quantum states, the atom exhibits a kind of quantum mechanical incompressibility during free fall in inhomogeneous, tidal gravitational fields like those of the Earth.A superconducting ring-like system with a persistent current circulating around it behaves like the circular Rydberg atom during free fall. Like the electronic wavefunction of the freely falling atom, the Cooper-pair wavefunction is quantum mechanically incompressible. The ions in the lattice of the superconductor, however, are not incompressible, since they do not possess a globally coherent quantum phase. The resulting difference during free fall in the response of the nonlocalizable Cooper pairs of electrons and the localizable ions to inhomogeneous gravitational fields is predicted to lead to a charge separation effect, which in turn leads to a large Coulomb force that opposes the convergence caused by the tidal gravitational force on the superconducting system. A "Cavendish-like" experiment is proposed for observing the charge separation effect induced by inhomogeneous gravitational fields in a superconducting circuit. The charge separation effect is determined to be limited by a pair-breaking process that occurs when low frequency gravitational perturbations are present.

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Do mirrors for gravitational waves exist?

Cited by 36 publications

References 22 publications

A Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect, and Its Connection to Parametric Oscillators and Gravitational Radiation

A Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect, and Its Connection to Parametric Oscillators and Gravitational Radiation

Quantum interaction between two gravitationally polarizable objects in the presence of boundaries

Quantum Incompressibility of a Falling Rydberg Atom, and a Gravitationally-Induced Charge Separation Effect in Superconducting Systems

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