New approach leverages planetary magnetospheres to detect high-frequency gravitational waves

A brand new technique of detecting high-frequency gravitational waves (HFGWs) has been proposed by a analysis crew led by Prof. Tao Liu, Affiliate Professor from the Division of Physics on the Hong Kong College of Science and Know-how (HKUST).

The crew’s progressive method could allow the profitable detection of HFGWs by using present and technologically possible astronomical telescopes in planetary magnetospheres, opening up new potentialities for finding out the early universe and violent cosmic occasions in an efficient and technically viable method.

Gravitational waves (GWs) are produced by numerous astronomical phenomena, corresponding to phase transitions within the early universe and collisions of primordial black holes. Nonetheless, their results are extraordinarily weak and have been found solely in comparatively low frequency band utilizing the strategy of interferometry.

Observing the universe utilizing GWs thus presents important technological challenges, notably in probing the high-frequency band above one kilohertz, the place the utilization of interferometry turns into strongly restricted.

To deal with this issue, Prof. Liu and his postdoctoral fellow Dr. Chen Zhang have collaborated with Prof. Jing Ren from the Institute of Excessive Vitality Physics on the Chinese language Academy of Sciences, and achieved a major breakthrough of their current examine. The analysis capitalizes on the intriguing bodily impact that GWs residing inside a magnetic field could be transformed to probably detectable electromagnetic waves.

By leveraging the prolonged paths inside planetary magnetospheres, the conversion effectivity is elevated, yielding extra alerts of electromagnetic waves. The detection functionality could be additional enhanced for telescopes with a large subject of view due to the expansive angular distribution of sign flux inside such a planet laboratory.

This progressive technique permits a single astronomical telescope to perform as a detector for GW alerts. By combining a number of telescopes, a large protection of HFGW frequencies, starting from megahertz to 10²⁸ hertz, could be achieved.

This frequency vary is equal to the electromagnetic spectrum utilized in astronomical observations and contains a big portion that has by no means been explored within the detection of GWs earlier than. The examine supplies an preliminary evaluation of sensitivity for satellite-based detectors in low Earth orbit and ongoing missions inside Jupiter’s magnetosphere.

The analysis was revealed in Physical Review Letters in March and was subsequently highlighted by Nature Astronomy in an article titled “Planet-sized laboratories provide cosmological insights” in Could. This emphasizes the importance of the analysis in paving the best way for future research into novel GW detection applied sciences.