Gravitational-wave Detection With Matter-wave Interferometers Based On Standing Light Waves

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of matter-wave interferometers using standing light waves for gravitational-wave detection, highlighting the dominant phase shift contribution and future technological prospects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to gravitational-wave detection using matter-wave interferometers with standing light waves, emphasizing the phase shift's dependence on gravitational wave derivatives.

Findings

Phase shift dominated by gravitational wave time derivative terms

Future technological improvements could enable sensitive matter-wave detectors

Potential for matter-wave interferometers to complement existing gravitational-wave observatories

Abstract

We study the possibility of detecting gravitational-waves with matter-wave interferometers, where atom beams are split, deflected and recombined totally by standing light waves. Our calculation shows that the phase shift is dominated by terms proportional to the time derivative of the gravitational wave amplitude. Taking into account future improvements on current technologies, it is promising to build a matter-wave interferometer detector with desired sensitivity.