Can lightning be a noise source for a spherical gravitational wave antenna?

TL;DR

This paper models the impact of lightning-induced electromagnetic noise on the Mario SCHENBERG gravitational wave detector, finding that such noise does not significantly interfere with gravitational wave detection.

Contribution

It provides a mathematical model of lightning noise interaction with the SCHENBERG antenna and quantifies its impact on the detector's signals.

Findings

Lightning noise does not significantly disturb the detector

Mathematical modeling of electromagnetic disturbances

Assessment of noise impact on gravitational wave signals

Abstract

The detection of gravitational waves is a very active research field at the moment. In Brazil the gravitational wave detector is called Mario SCHENBERG. Due to its high sensitivity it is necessary to model mathematically all known noise sources so that digital filters can be developed that maximize the signal-to-noise ratio. One of the noise sources that must be considered are the disturbances caused by electromagnetic pulses due to lightning close to the experiment. Such disturbances may influence the vibrations of the antenna's normal modes and mask possible gravitational wave signals. In this work we model the interaction between lightning and SCHENBERG antenna and calculate the intensity of the noise due to a close lightning stroke in the detected signal. We find that the noise generated does not disturb the experiment significantly.