Gravitational Wave Detection with Atom Interferometry

Understand

We propose two distinct atom interferometer gravitational wave detectors, one terrestrial and another satellite-based, utilizing the core technology of the Stanford $10 \text{m}$ atom interferometer presently under construction.

• The terrestrial experiment can operate with strain sensitivity $ \sim \frac{10^{-19}}{\sqrt{\text{Hz}}}$ in the 1 Hz - 10 Hz band, inaccessible to LIGO, and can detect gravitational waves from solar mass binaries out to megaparsec distances.
• The satellite experiment probes the same frequency spectrum as LISA with better strain sensitivity $ \sim \frac{10^{-20}}{\sqrt{\text{Hz}}}$.
• Each configuration compares two widely separated atom interferometers run using common lasers.