Ultra-stable optical clock cavities as resonant mass gravitational wave detectors in search for new physics

Abstract

We propose using table-top-size ultra-stable optical cavities from state-of-the-art optical atomic clocks as bar gravitational wave detectors for frequencies higher than 2 kHz. We show that the 2-20 kHz range of gravitational waves' spectrum can be accessed with instruments below 2 meters in size. The materials and properties of the proposed cavities are in the grasp of today's technology. The ultra-stable optical cavities allow detection not only predicted gravitational wave signals from such sources as binary neutron star mergers and post-mergers, subsolar-mass primordial black-hole mergers, and collapsing stellar cores, but can also reach new physics beyond the standard model, looking for ultralight bosons such as QCD axions and axion-like particles formed through black hole superradiance.

Keywords

• Gravitational waves detectors
• Ultra-stable optical clock cavity
• QCD axions
• Primordial black-hole mergers