Charge Effects on Gravitational Wave Detectors

TL;DR

This paper explores how charge effects influence gravitational wave detectors, proposing that measuring these effects could determine the electron's bare mass and explaining irregular signals as caused by stray charges.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that charge-induced displacements in detectors can be used to measure fundamental particle properties and explains potential sources of noise in gravitational wave detection.

Findings

Mean-square displacement is highly sensitive to the bare mass of the charge.

Stray charges may cause irregular signals in gravitational wave detectors.

Charge effects could impact the performance of LIGO and similar detectors.

Abstract

We show that the mean-square displacement of a charged oscillator due to the zero point oscillations of the radiation field is unique in the sense that it is very sensitive to the value of the bare mass of the charge. Thus, a controlled experiment using gravitational wave detectors could lead to a determination of the electron bare mass and shed some light on quantum electrodynamic theory. We also speculate that the irregular signals of non-gravitational origin often observed in gravitational wave bar detectors could be caused by stray charges and that such charges could also adversely affect LIGO and other such detectors