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High Energy Phenomenology Seminar: Michael Wentzel & (UIUC) "Electromagnetic Cavities as Mechanical Bars for Gravitational Waves"

Speaker: Michael Wentzel
Date: 4/14/2023
Time: 11 a.m.
Location: Room 464
Event Contact: Brandy Koebbe
BKOEBBE@ILLINOIS.EDU
Sponsor: Department of Physics
Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
 

Superconducting cavities can operate analogously to Weber bar detectors of gravitational waves, converting mechanical to electromagnetic energy. The significantly reduced electromagnetic noise results in increased sensitivity to high-frequency signals well outside the bandwidth of the lowest mechanical resonance. In this talk, we will briefly discuss such signals of gravitational waves and demonstrate that a setup similar to the existing “MAGO” prototype, operating in a scanning or broadband manner, could have sensitivity to strains approximately 10^-22 - 10^-18 for frequencies of approximately 10 kHz - 1 GHz.