Configurations of a new atomic interferometer for gravitational wave detection

TL;DR

This paper analyzes various configurations of a novel atomic interferometer designed for gravitational wave detection, demonstrating improved noise mitigation and potential for complete laser frequency noise cancellation through data processing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of new AI configurations and introduces methods for effectively canceling laser frequency noise in gravitational wave detection.

Findings

Certain configurations can completely cancel laser frequency noise.

The sensitivity function analysis distinguishes different momentum transfer schemes.

The new AI configurations enhance gravitational wave detection sensitivity.

Abstract

Recently, the configuration using atomic interferometers (AIs) had been suggested for the detection of gravitational waves. A new AI with some additional laser pulses for implementing large momentum transfer was also put forward, in order to improve the influence of shot noise and laser frequency noise. In the paper, we use the sensitivity function to analyze all possible configurations of the new AI and to distinguish how many momenta are transferred in a specific configuration. With the analysis for the new configuration, we explore the detection scheme of gravitational wave further, in particular, for the amelioration of the laser frequency noise. We find that the amelioration is definite in such scheme, but novelly, in some cases the frequency noise can be canceled completely by using a proper data processing method.