Robert Baker Jr. on Gravitational Wave Detection
- October 31st, 2011
- Posted in Video
Dr. Robert Baker, Jr. discusses a new design for an open cavity High-Frequency Gravitational Wave Detector in the GHz band, which consists of a high-quality-factor open microwave cavity and a Gaussian beam passing through a static magnetic field in free space. Essentially this effect is an inverse Gertsenshtein effect in which HFGWs are converted into electromagnetic (EM) waves when passing through a static magnetic field, which allows HFGWs to be used for both research and communications applications.
Baker coauthored this paper with Dr. Fangyu Li and Dr. Zhenyun Fang of the Chengdu Microwave Laboratory. Both researchers are involved with China’s High Frequency Gravitational Wave research program, which was originally initiated by Professor Fangyu Li as part of the “Gravitational Research Group” at Chongqing University in the early 1990′s. The proposed detector is based upon a physical principle called the “inverse Gertsenshtein effect” that Li suggests would be suitable for detecting HFGWs.
The Gertsenshtein effect, first described in 1962, involves the generation of gravitational waves by the passage of electromagnetic waves through a static magnetic field. In Li’s design, gravitational waves in a strong static magnetic field interact with a beam of electromagnetic waves, having the same frequency as the HFGWs, to generate photons that result from the passage of the HFGWs.
By coupling an open cavity with a high-quality factor and the Gaussian-beam-type microwave beam in the presence of a strong static magnetic field is expected to be a suitable scheme for detection of the both relic HFGWs (from the Big Bang) and the laboratory-generated HFGWs in the GHz band. Dr. Li believes that experimental tests can be accomplished in the detection of both relic HFGWs and those generated in the laboratory based on this detector design.
Baker discusses the scientific applications of this detector design as well as its role in a communications infrastucture that Baker has proposed based on HFGW technologies. He suggests that it may faciliate significant new technological applications for the wireless communications sector, and discusses the potential issues with system noise and thresholds of detectability for artificially generated HFGWs.