Gravitational Wave Generation and Detection Using Acoustic Resonators and Coupled Resonance Chambers

Abstract

Abstract. An experiment is described for the generation and detection of High-Frequency Gravitational Waves (HFGWs) in the laboratory utilizing acoustic piezoelectric resonators for generation, and coupled resonance chambers for detection. Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators or FBARs (similar to those utilized in commercial cellular telephones) energized by magnetrons (similar to those utilized in microwave ovens) are distributed in a ring-shaped array several hundred meters in diameter. The magnetrons are phase locked and are sufficient in number to energize millions of FBARs fabricated on thousands of wafers. The FBARs produce jerks (time rate of change of acceleration or a third time derivative motion imparted to their electrode masses) at a frequency of 2.45GHz. The resulting 4.9GHz HFGW is focused at the center of a segmented or asymmetrical ring of FBARs and is concentrated there by a high-temperature superconductor (HTSC) to generate a HFGW flux on the order of 17mW m -2 to 7W m -2 . A miniature version of an existing HFGW detector designed at INFN Genoa, Italy, consisting of a pair of coupled HTSC-surfaced resonance chambers (about one centimeter in diameter) will be situated in the middle, having their axes perpendicular to the plane of the ring of FBARs. Alternatively, a resonance-loop chamber detector, similar to that developed at Birmingham University, U.K., could be utilized. Details of the experiment and challenges to be met in its design as well as applications to space technology are discussed.

Input Power Requirements for High-Frequency Gravitational Wave Generators

“…Regions of the guide separated by λ/2 will oscillate in anti-phase but the resultant HFGW will be in phase, since the produced GW is at doubled frequency. Therefore, this configuration is equivalent to the ring of discrete acoustic resonators (small masses) proposed previously by Woods and Baker (2005) for terrestrial HFGW production. Because the active material vibrates in phase and in opposite pairs and has circular symmetry, all the generated GW will combine in phase at the center of the torus.…”

“…A rather practical laboratory HFGW generator is one utilizing off-the-shelf components such as magnetron energized piezoelectric crystals or Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators or FBARs (Woods and Baker, 2005;Baker, Woods and Li, 2006). Another, more exotic HFGW generator involves the use of nuclear forces (Fontana and Baker, 2006;Fontana and Binder, 2009).…”

Towards a New Era in Gravitational Wave Detection: High Frequency Gravitational Wave Research

“…As an historical remark, the idea of a mutual electromagnetic to gravitational wave conversion (EM-GW conversion) in a magnetic field was initially proposed and estimated in the pioneering papers of Gertzenshtein (1962) and Zeldovich (Zeldovich, 1973;Zeldovich and Novikov, 1975) in application to some astrophysical phenomena. This principle has been investigated also with respect to a potential set-up of a magneto-optical GW device (Baker, Davis and Woods, 2005;Li, Baker, Fang, Stevenson, Chen, 2007).…”

“…al., 1984;Servin and Brodin, 2003). The power for such a HFGW beam could be as high as 10 11 -10 12 ergs -1 • Black Hole evaporation: A family of primordial mini Black Holes created during the very early Universe could evaporate through the so-called "graviton degree of freedom" (GDF) producing a HFGW background (Bekenstein, 1973;Hawking, 1975;Carr, 1976;Zeldovich, 1980). A rotating primordial mini Black Hole could have an enhanced GDF radiation.…”

“…Inside the atmospheres of stars or inside ionized gas clouds, electromagnetic to gravitational wave conversion can take place resulting in narrow directed coherent HFGW beams. By this mechanism, an electromagnetic beam can produce a HFGW beam amplified by the quadruple oscillations of atoms in the media (Gertzenshtein, 1962;Zeldovich, 1973;Galtsov et. al., 1984;Servin and Brodin, 2003).…”