Influence of separating distance between atomic sensors for gravitational wave detection

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a gravitational wave detection scheme using atomic interferometers, focusing on how the separation distance between sensors affects noise suppression and detection sensitivity, revealing contrasting effects on different noise types.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of the relation between sensor separation and noise suppression, highlighting contrasting impacts on vibration, laser frequency, and shot noise.

Findings

Vibration and laser frequency noise suppression depends on sensor separation.

Shot noise behaves differently with respect to sensor distance.

Optimal sensor configuration requires balancing these noise effects.

Abstract

We consider a recent scheme of gravitational wave detection using atomic interferometers as inertial sensors, and reinvestigate its configuration using the concept of sensitivity functions. We show that such configuration can suppress noise without influencing the gravitational wave signal. But the suppression is insufficient for the direct observation of gravitational wave signals, so we analyse the behaviour of the different noises influencing the detection scheme. As a novel method, we study the relations between the measurement sensitivity and the distance between two interferometers, and find that the results derived from vibration noise and laser frequency noise are in stark contrast to that derived from the shot noise, which is significant for the configuration design of gravitational wave detectors using atomic interferometers.