Scalable, symmetric atom interferometer for infrasound gravitational wave detection

Published 4 Sep 2019 in quant-ph | (1909.01951v1)

Abstract: We propose a terrestrial detector for gravitational waves with frequencies between 0.3 Hz and 5 Hz. Therefore, we discuss a symmetric matter-wave interferometer with a single loop and 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. It 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 $2\cdot10^{{-21}\,/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$.}