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arXiv:1811.10306

Comment on "Interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a gravitational wave"

Richard Howl, Dennis Rätzel, Ivette Fuentes

Published Nov 26, 2018• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A gravitational-wave (GW) detector that utilizes the phononic excitations of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has recently been proposed [NJP 16, 085003 (2014)]. A subsequent and independent study, [arXiv:1807.07046v1], has suggested an alternative GW detection scheme that also uses phonons of a BEC but which was found to be many orders of magnitude away from being feasible. Here we make clear that the two proposed schemes are very different and that the conclusions of [arXiv:1807.07046v1] do not apply to the original proposal [NJP 16, 085003 (2014)].

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1811.10306

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A gravitational-wave (GW) detector that utilizes the phononic excitations of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has recently been proposed [NJP 16, 085003 (2014)]. A subsequent and independent study, [arXiv:1807.07046v1], has suggested an alternative GW detection scheme that also uses phonons of a BEC but which was found to be many orders of magnitude away from being feasible. Here we make clear that the two proposed schemes are very different and that the conclusions of [arXiv:1807.07046v1] do not apply to the original proposal [NJP 16, 085003 (2014)].
Partly motivated by recent proposals for the detection of gravitational waves, we study their interaction with Bose-Einstein condensates. For homogeneous condensates at rest, the gravitational wave does not directly create phonons (to lowest order) but merely affects existing phonons or indirectly creates phonon pairs via quantum squeezing---an effect which has already been considered in the literature. For inhomogeneous condensate flows such as a vortex lattice, however, the impact of the gravitational wave can directly create phonons. This more direct interaction can be more efficient and could perhaps help bring such a detection mechanism for gravitational waves a step closer towards experimental realizability---even though there is still a long way to go. Finally, we argue that super-fluid helium might offer some advantages in this respect.
Abstract An interesting proposal for detecting gravitational waves involves quantum metrology of Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs). We consider a forced modulation of the speed of sound of a BEC, whose modulation frequency matches that of an incoming continuous gravitational wave. The speed of sound modulation induces parametric resonance in the BEC, which in turn enhances sensitivity of the BEC to gravitational waves. We find that such a BEC detector could potentially be used to detect gravitational waves across several orders of magnitude in frequency, with the sensitivity depending on the speed of sound, size of the condensate, and frequency of the phonons. We discuss the sensitivity of a possible BEC experiment and comment on the current technological limitations. We also comment on the noise sources as well as what is necessary for such a detector to become feasible.
We investigate a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) as a gravitational wave detector, and study its sensitivity by optimizing the properties of the condensate and the measurement duration. We show that detecting kilohertz gravitational waves is limited by current experimental techniques in squeezing BEC phonons. Without focussing on a specific detector setup, our study shows that substantive future improvements in technology (e.g., increasing the squeezing of BEC states or their physical size) will be necessary for such a detector to be competitive in measuring gravitational waves of astrophysical and/or cosmological origin.
The recent detections of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations have opened the field of GW astronomy, intensifying interest in GWs and other possible detectors sensitive in different frequency ranges. Although strong GW producing events are rare and currently unpredictable, GWs can in principle be simulated in analogue systems at will in the lab. Simulation of GWs in a manifestly quantum system would allow for the study of the interaction of quantum phenomena with GWs. Such predicted interaction is exploited in a recently proposed Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) based GW detector. In this paper, we show how to manipulate a BEC to mimic the effect of a passing GW. By simultaneously varying the external potential applied to the BEC, and an external magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance, we show that the resulting change in speed of sound can directly reproduce a GW metric. We also show how to simulate a metric used in the recently proposed BEC based GW detector, to provide an environment for testing the proposed metrology scheme of the detector. Explicit expressions for simulations of various GW sources are given. This result is also useful to generally test the interaction of quantum phenomena with GWs in a curved spacetime analogue experiment.
Quasiparticles in a Bose-Einstein condensate are sensitive to space-time distortions. Gravitational waves can induce transformations on the state of phonons that can be observed through quantum state discrimination techniques. We show that this method is highly robust to thermal noise and depletion. We derive a bound on the strain sensitivity that shows that the detection of waves in the kHz regime is not significantly affected by temperature in a wide range of parameters that are well within current experimental reach.