Science-Driven Tunable Design of Cosmic Explorer Detectors

TL;DR

This paper proposes tunable configurations for the Cosmic Explorer gravitational-wave detector to optimize sensitivity across different frequency ranges, enhancing its ability to study diverse astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces and characterizes tunable detector configurations that enable Cosmic Explorer to target various science goals with a single infrastructure.

Findings

A 40 km Cosmic Explorer outperforms a 20 km in most science goals.

Tuning options improve sensitivity for post-merger physics, extreme gravity, and neutron star properties.

Flexible tuning enhances detection prospects across multiple astrophysical sources.

Abstract

Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors like Cosmic Explorer can be tuned to improve their sensitivity at high or low frequencies by tuning the response of the signal extraction cavity. Enhanced sensitivity above 2 kHz enables measurements of the post-merger gravitational-wave spectrum from binary neutron star mergers, which depends critically on the unknown equation of state of hot, ultra-dense matter. Improved sensitivity below 500 Hz favors precision tests of extreme gravity with black hole ringdown signals and improves the detection prospects while facilitating an improved measurement of source properties for compact binary inspirals at cosmological distances. At intermediate frequencies, a more sensitive detector can better measure the tidal properties of neutron stars. We present and characterize the performance of tuned Cosmic Explorer configurations that are designed to optimize detections across different astrophysical source populations. These tuning options give Cosmic Explorer the flexibility to target a diverse set of science goals with the same detector infrastructure. We find that a 40 km Cosmic Explorer detector outperforms a 20 km in all key science goals other than access to post-merger physics. This suggests that Cosmic Explorer should include at least one 40 km facility.