Detection of gravitational waves in circular particle accelerators

TL;DR

This paper proposes using circular particle accelerators like the LHC as gravitational wave detectors by measuring proton bunch travel times, potentially opening a new observational window for millihertz GWs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to detect gravitational waves using existing accelerator infrastructure with high-precision timing detectors.

Findings

Proton bunch travel times are affected by gravitational waves.

A high-precision detector could enable GW detection in accelerators.

Feasibility of implementing ultrafast photon detectors at LHC is discussed.

Abstract

Here we calculate the effects of astrophysical gravitational waves (GWs) on the travel times of proton bunch test masses in circular particle accelerators. We show that a high-precision proton bunch time-tagging detector could turn a circular particle accelerator facility into a GW observatory sensitive to millihertz (mHz) GWs. We comment on sources of noise and the technological feasibility of ultrafast single photon detectors by conducting a case study of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.