Influence of geomagnetic perturbation on resonant gravitational wave detector

TL;DR

This paper investigates how geomagnetic disturbances and atmospheric low-frequency signals can generate background noise in cryogenic resonant gravitational wave detectors, potentially overshadowing true gravitational wave signals.

Contribution

It identifies the sources of magnetic and atmospheric noise affecting gravitational wave detectors and proposes mitigation strategies involving magnetometers and magnetic shielding.

Findings

Geomagnetic pulsations and atmospheric signals can exceed gravitational wave signals in detectors.

Magnetometers and magnetic screens are effective in reducing background noise.

Background signals pose a significant challenge for gravitational wave detection accuracy.

Abstract

The level of background signals in modern cryogenic resonant mass gravitational wave antenna is discussed caused by (a) the geomagnetic field pulsations and (b) an atmosferic of very low frequency band, generated by a lightning flash. The analysis of our results show that the signals of this origin will generally exceed the signals from the gravitational wave sources. To suppress these artifacts in such gravitational antenna, it is necessary to use the magnetometer included as anti-coincidence protection and a system of magnetic screens.