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IOP Publishing, New Journal of Physics, 7(19), p. 073023, 2017

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aa78cb

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Detecting continuous gravitational waves with superfluid $^4$He

Journal article published in 2016 by S. Singh, L. A. De Lorenzo, I. Pikovski ORCID, I. Pikovsky, K. C. Schwab
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Postprint: archiving allowed
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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Direct detection of gravitational waves is opening a new window onto our universe. Here, we study the sensitivity to continuous-wave strain fields of a kg-scale optomechanical system formed by the acoustic motion of superfluid helium-4 parametrically coupled to a superconducting microwave cavity. This narrowband detection scheme can operate at very high $Q$-factors, while the resonant frequency is tunable through pressurization of the helium in the 0.1-1.5 kHz range. The detector can therefore be tuned to a variety of astrophysical sources and can remain sensitive to a particular source over a long period of time. For reasonable experimental parameters, we find that strain fields on the order of $h∼ 10^{-23} /\sqrt{\rm Hz}$ are detectable. We show that the proposed system can significantly improve the limits on gravitational wave strain from nearby pulsars within a few months of integration time.