SOGRO - Terrestrial full-tensor detector for mid-frequency gravitational waves

摘要

Laser interferometer gravitational-wave (GW) detectors are observing signals from merging black hole and neutron star binaries with a frequency window from 10Hz to several kHz. Future space-based laser interferometers will open a new window of 0.1mHz to 0.1Hz. In this paper, we discuss the possibility of constructing a terrestrial GW detector named Superconducting Omni-directional Gravitational Radiation Observatory (SOGRO), which can fill the missing frequency window, 0.1 to 10Hz, with astronomically interesting sensitivity. SOGRO measures all five tensor components of the spacetime metric, which results in uniform sensitivity for all-sky directions and enables identification of the source direction and wave polarization with a single detector. Seismic and Newtonian gravity noise pose the greatest challenges for constructing ground-based detectors below 10 Hz. SOGRO utilizes enhanced mechanical and electrical stabilities of materials at cryogenic temperatures to reject common-mode seismic noise to a very high degree. Further, its full-tensor characteristic gives an advantage in the rejection of the Newtonian noise over conventional detectors.