Gravity Wave Interferometry

 

Gravity Wave Interferometry

This is probably massively unreadable for many people. It’s also very long. It is more a matter of me wanting to keep my notes intact and all in one place. I mostly write for my own benefit. Don't feel bad about browsing and skimming some of the more math and sciencey parts.

Gravity waves

Gravity waves are a gravitational field which can be viewed as a distortion of local space, surrounding massive objects. Gravity waves can be viewed as spreading ripples in this space distortion that arise when a massive object is moved and its gravitational fields disturbed. Like light, gravity waves travel at the speed of light and obey the inverse-square law [intensity is proportional to 1/distance^2. Gravity waves induce a kind of “kneading” distortion in the space through which they move, making local distances alternately larger and smaller. In one direction, perpendicular to the wave’s direction of travel, space is stretched, while in the other direction space is compressed, with the stretch and compression exchanging places after half a period of the wave. The wave can be visualized as a long sausage with its sides alternately pinched in side-to-side and top-to-bottom, with the pinches along the length of the sausage repeating with each wavelength and the entire sausage moving forward at the speed of light.

Gravity waves have two distinct polarization states. Viewed head-on, gravity waves with the “+” polarization state alternately compress and expand space top-to-bottom and side-to-side (kneading space with a “+” pattern). Gravity waves having the “X” polarization state compress and expand space along lines 45 degrees to the right of vertical and to the left of vertical (kneading with an “X” pattern). These two polarization states make gravity wave detection more difficult because a given detector is usually sensitive to only one of the two states and therefore detects only half of the possible signals.

Gravity waves are very difficult to detect directly because they are the wave embodiment of the weakest force of the universe (gravity is 4.3 x 10^-40 times weaker than electromagnetism). The effects of gravity waves on matter are correspondingly very very very small. Early detection attempts, using large resonant cylinders as detectors, produced some false positive. Resonant-cylinder detectors were shown to be too insensitive to detect gravity waves at the intensities expected. 

As gravity waves travel, they distort the space through which they travel, causing adjacent points to momentarily become farther apart or closer together, very minutely. The result of this is that radio waves moving through a gravity-wave distorted region of space will have a small variation, on the order of a microsecond, in their transit time through the region. This effect is independent of the polarization of the gravity wave.

Early methods of detection

The precise timing of the radio pulses from millisecond pulsars will be modified as they pass through a region where the gravity waves are present, and the pulse train will be delayed by microseconds to nanoseconds. This, at least in principle, permits gravity-wave detection. Ssince there are about 70 known millisecond pulsars, a large fraction of which having trains of pulses that could be delayed by the same gravity waves, pairs of pulsar signals can be correlated to focus on the time delay variation present in both signals from the two pulsars, thereby suppressing noise. The relative strengths of these correlations can also give fairly precise information on the direction and distance of the source that produced the gravity waves, provided that production was in the right frequency range and of sufficient intensity.

Using millisecond pulsar timing, combining observations from a number of radio telescopes, to directly detect low-frequency gravity waves. The work is complementary to that of ground-based gravity wave detectors (e.g., LIGO, etc.) and to the proposed space-based detector (LISA). LIGO is sensitive to gravity waves with frequencies between 50 Hz and 10 kHz. LISA will be sensitive to gravity waves with frequencies between 1 Hz and 10-5 Hz. The NANOGrav observations of pulsar timing will be sensitive to gravity waves with very low frequencies between 10-7 and 10-10 Hz.

It turns out that significant gravity wave radiation from two independent mechanisms should exist in the NANOGrav range of frequencies. There should be large numbers of supermassive black hole binary systems in the universe. These systems, usually near galactic centers, should involve pairs of orbiting supermassive black holes with masses on the order of 10^7 solar masses. Such systems should produce very intense low-frequency gravity waves that fall within the range of sensitivity of NANOGrav observations. It is expected that during the inflationary period of the early universe, primordial gravity waves of similar intensities and frequencies should have been produced as the universe expanded and should still be present as the gravitational analog of the cosmic microwave background.

The problem for the NANOGrav detection of gravity waves is that the precision with which pulsar periods are determined is not enough to achieve the needed sensitivity due to sparse data collection and insufficient duration of pulsar detection. Correct these deficiencies and monitoring at least 20 pulsars with 100-nanosecond precision and five pulsars with 10-nanosecond precision.

This improvement should allow them to observe, identify, and locate many supermassive black hole binaries and probably to detect the gravity wave background radiation from the Big Bang.

Primordial Gravitational Waves 

Gravitational waves created in the very early stages of the Big Bang, during what is called the inflationary era. It is a discovery of unprecedented importance in cosmology, because it enables us to visualize and gain information about the universe all the way back to the time when it had a diameter of 10^-26 meters and was doubling in size every 10-37 seconds.

Our universe (which we refer to as the Minkowsky Continuum) is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, driven by some mysterious energy which we do not understand and we cannot explain that supposedly makes up about 2/3 of the total mass-energy in the universe. Either that or there is something fundamentally wrong with our current understanding of gravity. I am better that there is something missing from our current understanding of gravity, but I lack the data to formulate a coherent theory. I am actually constructing an experiment to test out one such alternative gravitational theory, let you know if it pans out.

One of the universe's deepest mystery is cosmological inflation, a process that started immediately after the Big Bang and caused the universe to expand exponentially fast, much faster than the speed of light, and then mysteriously "switched off", allowing the universe to expand at the much more leisurely rate that continues to this day.

Inflation was first suggested to solve problems with the then-developing Big Bang model of cosmology. One of three serious problems inherent in the naive Big Bang model: the problems of horizon, flatness, and monopoles. 

The horizon problem arises from the fact that separate parts of the universe go out of speed-of-light contact very early in the Bang and have no further contact, yet we find that they have the same temperature with only small variations, as evidenced by measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

The flatness problem is related to the observation, made with ever-increasing accuracy, that the curvature parameter (omega) of the universe is precisely omega=1. This means that the energy content of the universe is just right to fit in the crack between positive curvature of excess mass leading to eventual re-collapse from the pull of gravity and negative curvature created by excess kinetic energy of expansion.

The monopole problem arises from the prediction by most particle-physics models that the extreme temperatures of the early Big Bang should have produced floods of massive exotic particles, including magnetic monopoles. While most of the other exotics have long since decayed into more normal particles (electrons, protons, neutrinos, photons, ...), magnetic monopoles cannot do that. They have a single magnetic charge that is either an isolated "north" or "south" magnetic pole. Because of that magnetic charge, the monopoles are "stuck" in this configuration and cannot decay to lighter particles, since there are no lighter magnetically-charged particles available, so they should be around today. Nevertheless, all experimental searches for magnetic monopoles have been negative.

The inflation concept, after some refinement, was able to deal with all of these problems, explaining the uniformity, flatness, and absence of magnetic monopoles in our universe as resulting from the smoothing effects of very rapid expansion in the initial stages of the Big Bang. However, there were critics of the inflation concept. It was argued that inflation was not a part of relativity equations describing the universe, that it was "put in by hand" in an unsatisfactory way, that the switching on and off seemed quite arbitrary, and that it made no testable predictions.

The latter criticism, as it turns out, is not true. While inflation smoothes and homogenizes the early universe, quantum mechanics tells us that no physical process can be completely smooth because of quantum fluctuations. Those fluctuations, during the inflation era with its ultra high energies, should have produced vast quantities of gravitational waves that are, in principle, detectable.

The gravitational wave can be visualized as a long sausage with its sides alternately pinched in side-to-side and top-to-bottom, with the pinches along the length of the sausage repeating with each wavelength and the entire sausage moving forward at the speed of light. It is particularly interesting to consider that the pinch in the sausage can spiral either clockwise or counterclockwise as the wave travels. These twists in the gravity wave correspond to two circular polarization modes carrying spins of ±2, and these are related to the polarization swirls in the microwave background that we will describe below. Memo to self, that is an unappetizing analogy, find a better one.

An enormous amount of energy should have gone into these gravitational waves during the inflation era, and they should have still been very strong about 400,000 years later, when neutral atoms of hydrogen formed, the universe went from opaque to transparent to light, and the cosmic background radiation was released. These primordial gravitational waves, if they exist, should have left their mark on the cosmic microwave background radiation that we have been detecting with ever increasing precision. In particular, they should have an effect on the pattern of polarization in the microwaves.

Electromagnetic waves, whether they be microwaves, light, or gamma rays, travel through space with the electric and magnetic fields oscillating in directions perpendicular to each other and to the direction of motion. The plane in which the electric field oscillates is said to be the direction of polarization of the wave. For example, the light that bounces from the roadway tends to be polarized horizontal in the plane of the pavement. If you wear sunglasses that block the horizontally polarized light, the road glare is greatly reduced.

The microwaves of the cosmic background tend to be slightly polarized, and one can map the sky by measuring their polarization direction at each detection pixel. This polarization map carries the signal of the primordial gravity waves from inflation, because the gravity wave imprinted themselves on the cosmic background radiation by creating pinwheel-like swirl patterns of the microwaves. These swirls can be in circles or tilted 360° fans, but in any case, they have a definite twist that demonstrates the imprint of gravity waves.

The swirling polarization modes are called "B-modes" because they resemble magnetic (B) field lines, while the symmetric polarization patterns that lack a swirl direction are called "E-modes" because they resemble electric (E) field lines. Detailed calculations have shown that while many types of phenomena can create E-mode patterns in the cosmic microwave background, gravity waves can make both E and B modes, the latter principally because of their spin ±2 circular polarization modes mentioned above. A few other phenomena, e.g., gravitational lensing, can make weak B modes, but these can be removed by careful analysis.

The key to testing the inflation model lay in the careful mapping of the cosmic background polarization. 

Because of the measurements, we now have some detailed information on the primordial gravity waves produced by cosmological inflation. The first and most important fact was that the gravity wave signatures are there, confirming the inflation scenario and falsifying a number of other prominent cosmological models, including the recycling "clapping brane" model (which I kind of liked).

Blah blah blah, history of science. Good for you if you actually read all that instead of skimming it. 

Gravitational Interferometers

Gravitational Interferometers are the instruments for Gravitational Astronomy. They consist of three or more satellites in precise positions that accurately measure the distance between them via interference in laser beams. Alternate expansion and contraction of perpendicular distances record the passing of gravitational waves.

The General Theory of Relativity predicted the existence of gravitational waves, in analog with electromagnetic theory predicting waves emitted by charged particles. The basic value, however, is mass rather than charge. Due to the scale of G, the gravitational constant, only very massive and/or relativistic bodies emit measurable gravitational waves, which only interact weakly with matter. As a result, gravity waves traverse the cosmos in almost pristine condition, providing information about the sources in much the same way that visible light provides information about the stars. Unlike forms of EM Astronomy, gravitational detectors are emitted from space-time bulk rather than points, and so provide some information about the mass currents of the source. The signal quality of a GI is governed by its frequency and strength. Because gravitational waves are spatially larger than the objects they measures, GI is more akin to sonar than telescopes.

As a gravitational wave travels through the Universe, it alternately compresses and expands objects in perpendicular directions. As a bulk phenomenon, gravitational waves are only observable in the context of two or more masses -- a single point can never measure a gravitational wave, since locally (at a point) space-time is flat. Only with respect to another body can the induced gravitational strain, h, be measured.

In general non-relativistic gravitational wave production is negligible. Practical measures of gravitational waves measure strain, or change in length divided by length, for which the generalized gravitational quadrupole formula yields:

h ~= (2G M/c^2)*(v/c)^2*r

Where G is Newton's constant, M is the mass of the wave-generating object, c is the speed of light, v is the velocity of the wave-generating object, and r is the detection range. Some convenient numbers are:

G = 6.673*10^-11 meters^3/(kg seconds^2)

c = 2.997*10^8 meters/second

v/c should be a ratio

for r in meters, 1 light year = 9.46*10^15 meters

Sorry about the math, but I like to keep my notes intact.

For intelligences possessing nanotech, the smallest possible scale at which differences can be measured is the nuclear scale, at 10^-15 meters. Hence the "arms" of the interferometer are designed to be as long as possible, to maximize the detectable strain threshold. Since for large cosmic events, h is of magnitude 10^-17, gravitational interferometry is accessible even to baseline intelligences. (TL8.5 era measures strains to 10^-22).

For higher tech levels, gravitational astronomy becomes a penetrating tool towards unravelling the mysteries of the cosmos.

The Spatium Tempus Navigatium Corpus uses micro-wormholes to compare laser links traveling in space with reference beams through the wormholes. These sensors can be segmented, so that strong signals are processed quickly with fainter signals detected solar system, to minimize local gravitational disturbances. Over the span of decades to centuries, these observatories can measure cosmic phenomena such as universal expansion and cosmic string/domain walls/monopole production, and map out the global structure of the universe. They can detect the mass current density of local galactic formations, observe in detail the ongoing collision of the Milky Way and Sagittarius, and predict stellar phenomena such as novae, pulsars, and black hole collapse/formation.

The increasing size of the observatory coupled with photon redshift, quantum noise, and the challenges of keeping the satellites stationary and synchronized, and local gravitational signals presents a formidable challenge. However, those curious and/or extrospective sophonts are rewarded by an unparallelled instrument for the discovery and testing of cosmological theory.

Power carried by a gravitational wave is proportional to the square of the third time derivative of the gravitational quadrupole tensor. Gravitational dipoles do not exist, unlike their electric analogs, due to conservation of momentum. A gravitational monopole is equivalent to the standard Newtonian or Special Relativistic (Covariant) treatment. Gravitational waves are strictly a prediction of General Relativity (Covariance).

HOWEVER, I do not happen to have any spare communications gauge micro-wormholes, or even access to any I could rent or borrow, or even look at for that matter. So I have to seek out other solutions.

Chiao-Millikin Gravity Wave Antenna

Part of our early gravitational sensor experiments was the Chiao-Millikin Gravity Wave Antenna

Gravity is an extremely weak force but because there is no oppositely charged gravititic pole to cancel it out, its effects are cumulative.

If we separate a pair of electrons by a nuclear diameter, the electric force between these electrons is 2.40 x 10^43 times bigger than the gravitational force. 2.4 trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion times stronger than gravity.

It is only able to become a strong influence on our existence because it is always attractive and cumulative. All of the atoms in the Earth conspire gravitationally to pull us toward the Earth’s center, giving us weight, while the electrical forces of the electrons and nuclei of these atoms have opposite electrical charges and cancel each other out, so we experience no “electrical weight” from the Earth.

When you wiggle a charged particle like an electron or a proton, it makes electromagnetic waves; this is how radio transmission antennas work. When you wiggle a mass, it makes gravity waves, but because of the intrinsic weakness of gravity, it is very difficult to observe the waves that gravity produces. 

Gravity waves have been observed indirectly as an energy-loss mechanism in the spin-down of a binary pulsar (two co-orbiting neutron stars), but there have been, as yet, no direct gravity wave observations.

The LIGO gravity-wave detectors are large interferometers 4.0 kilometers on a side. LIGO has made impressive strides in reducing noise and improving its sensitivity. The LISA project, uses three satellites orbiting that form a giant triangle five million kilometers on a side, has much greater sensitivity.

Prof. Raymond Chiao and his group created an interesting new innovation that could simplify gravity wave detection and might even make it possible to communicate by generating and detecting gravity waves.

Robert Millikan published a paper describing a definitive measurement of the charge of the electron. He used tiny electrically-charged oil drops on which the downward pull of gravity was carefully balanced by an upward electrical force. Prof. Chiao proposes to create a similar situation that uses pairs of “Millikan oil drops” made of superfluid liquid helium, each with one electron charge and a mass of about 1.9 micrograms. These would be trapped in a magnetic field and held in a delicate balance between gravitational attraction and electrical repulsion.

Assuming that the charge and mass of each drop can be assumed to move together as a unit like a fundamental particle because of quantum effects, a pair of such drops will vibrate with equal amplitudes in response to quadrupole electrical waves and quadrupole gravitational waves of the same strength. When such droplet-pairs are caused to be accelerated against one another they should produce equal amounts of quadrupole electrical and gravitational waves. Here, “quadrupole” means the radiation made by pairs with the same electric charges vibrated against one another with a changing distance of separation. Quadrupole radiation has a different emission pattern and a lower strength than the more familiar “dipole” radiation made by vibrating objects of opposite charge against one another. Gravity waves are required to be quadrupole radiation because there are no negative gravitational masses.

Since the masses of the Millikan droplets are about 1.9 micrograms, the electrical and gravitational forces between the drops will be precisely equal and opposite, and the gravity wave response of the drops will be equal to its electrical wave response. If the mass of such Millikan droplets is instead one Planck mass (about 22 micrograms), the gravitational response of the drops is 137 times larger than the electrical response. In this case, the system is placed in a situation where quantum mechanical effects are to be expected. The quantum-mechanical effects are important because the charge and mass of a given droplet must move together as a unit like a fundamental particle, or else the electricity/gravity equivalence is broken. Levitating such drops in a superconducting magnetic trap at ultra-low milli-Kelvin temperatures and use them as transducers between gravitational and electromagnetic radiation.

Prof. Chiao suggests that electrically driving pairs of such drops by scattering microwaves from them should produce gravity waves of the same frequency as the microwaves, and that when illuminated with the resulting gravitational radiation, the drops should produce electromagnetic waves of the same microwave frequency. Using this viewpoint as a model, Chaio calculates the probability of “scattering” microwaves into gravity waves and vice versa. Provided the drops are separated by a distance comparable to the wavelength of the waves, the probability is large enough to be well within the range of experimental measurements. This suggests an experiment similar to that of Heinrich Hertz, in which he produced and detected radio waves across a distance of a few meters.

This work points to at least two applications. The first is the implementation of a “gravitational radio”, a device that can send and receive signals in the microwave frequency domain using gravity waves. The other is a plan to attempt the detection of primordial gravity waves left over from the early stages of the Big Bang.

Electrical waves (radio waves, light, x-rays, gamma rays) interact strongly with matter, while gravity waves pass through matter almost as if it was not present. Thus, an ensemble of levitated charged drops on one side of the Earth might be able to transmit gravity wave signals right through the Earth, to be detected on the other side by a similar ensemble of levitated charged drops. Reliable through-the-Earth transmission might eliminate the need for the very expensive communication satellites. Secret or private messages sent by gravity waves could only be detected with levitated charged drop receivers tuned to the correct wavelengths, providing, at least for a time, a non-interceptible message channel.

The other application perhaps requires some explanation. In the early stages of the Big Bang, the Standard Model with inflation predicts that a large amount of gravitational radiation was created, with frequencies ranging from 10^-18 Hz to 10^10 Hz. The ekpyrotic model of Steinhart and Turock, on the other hand, predict that when extra-dimensional branes clap together to start the Big Bang, there is considerably less gravitational radiation, with what there is concentrated at frequencies between 1.0 and 10^10 Hz. There is a third pre-Big-Bang model that predicts even more gravitational radiation than inflation, and that radiation is concentrated at frequencies between 10^-5 and 10^15 Hz.

With the other available technology, distinguishing between these models is very difficult. The cosmic gravitational radiation is considerably weaker than that from merging neutron stars and would be even harder to detect. There is some hope that the primordial gravity waves may be indirectly detected because they “write” on the primordial electromagnetic waves that were created later in the Big Bang. Therefore, second-generation probes of the cosmic microwave background radiation may be able to observe correlated structures in the polarization of the microwaves arising from very low frequency (10^18 Hz) gravity waves produced in the era of Big Bang inflation. However, these are very difficult measurements.

Chiao’s technique offers the possibility of direct detection of primordial gravity waves. Direct detection of cosmic gravity waves in the GHz region with the levitated charged drops of Chiao would be an extremely important measurement. It could distinguish between the rival models of the early Big Bang, falsifying some models and supporting others.

To filter out any potential interference, the Chiao-Millikin Gravity Wave Antenna would be ideally be situated deep underground. Well suited for the Desertborn. Besides the application for gravity wave radio, it can be tuned to discern the different gravitational wave frequencies to be able to distinguish the rival model of gravity wave production from the Big Bang, then they would be sensitive enough to be able to detect distortions created by warp drive, continuum distortion drive, hyperspace, hyperdrive, wormhole, singularity drive, stargate, some alleged types of shields, some wonky forms of gravitic constriction fusion and any form of space-time metric engineering.

In other words, "We can seeee youuuuu!"

How to find a Ghost-Ship.

Our original interest in building a gravity wave interferometer was to detect signals in neighboring space-time continua (specifically thru a traversable wormhole that spanned between universes which had become blocked), and also as a signalling device as Gravitational Waves are the only form of energy which can pentrate thru the branes of different space time continuii.

Other more security and defense minded people came up with other applications.

First, you need to know how to measure Gravitational Waves

A typical gravity wave possesses 1000 trillion (a million billion) gravitons per cubic centimetre. Gravity Waves are about 1.5*10^17 times harder to detect than neutrino’s, but with a serious effort, it is possible. Individual gravitons are even harder to detect than neutrinos, they are on a scale of 10^33 times smaller footprint.

When a gravitational waves washes over an object, the object will alternately expand and contract the object over its length and perpendicular to its length. Measuring that miniscule change is where the difficulty comes in.

The usual method is the use a high frequency laser to measure the change in length.

Caesium-133 vibrates at 9,192,631,770 per second

Strontium-87 vibrates at 429,228,004,229,873.4 per second.

Caesium-133 is the most commonly used, the atomic standard to measure time. Easier to work with than Strontium-87, but nearly 47000 times slower.

A Caesium-133 Laser can measure changes on a scale of 1 part in 9,192,631,770 times the speed of light. 299,792,458 meter/second divided by 9,192,631,770 = which is about 3 centimetres, little more than an inch.

Unfortunately, gravitational waves are on the scale of changing things much less than that.

WARNING! MATH:

h = 2G*M*(v^2)/(c^4)/r

Where G is Newton's constant, M is the mass of the wave-generating object, c is the speed of light, v is the velocity of the wave-generating object, and r is the detection range.

G = 6.673*10E-11 meters^3/(kilogram seconds^2)

c = 299,792,458 meter/second

r in meters, 1 light year = 9,460,730,472,580,800 metres

END MATH ALERT!

Don’t get too intimidated by the formulation. Twice the distance away is twice as hard to detect. Twice as massive is twice as easy to detect. Twice as fast is four times easier to detect. That’s all you really need to remember

The gravitational waves from the Federationalist Galaxy-Class Starship Enterprise travelling at Warp 9 from 1 light-year away create graviometric waves of 1.75*10^-27 meters. Roughly 1.86*10^25 smaller than our Caesium-133 Laser Clock, we need to dramatically increase the sensitivity.

To increase the sensitivity, we bounce the laser down a 10 kilometer tunnel and measure the change over than longer distance. 10 kilometers divided by 3.26 centimetres is a 306,633 fold improvement. Still not enough, but a good start.

Stepping it up to Strontium-87 which vibrates at 429,228,004,229,873.4 per second. That boosts it another 46,700 fold.

Combining them, that is 1.43*10^10 improvement. Part the way there.

Well, we can increase the tunnel, which becomes silly at a certain point, finding one that is tectonically stable puts the most stable point on Hellas Basin, 2300 kilometers. That only gets us 230x more. A lot of work for not a lot of extra return.

But now we’re 3.29*10^12 increase.

Instead of just making it longer, we can reflect the beam multiple times. With the optimum Dielectric Mirrors, we can have up to 99.9999% reflectivity. We can reflect that beam 693,147 times before it degrades. We will have to create a lens with 693,147 separate nanoscopically precisely arranged mirrors, that will take some time. This is the equivalent of making our vacuum tunnel 693,147 times longer, the equivalent of 1.6 million kilometres long, or about 5.3 light seconds. While we are capable of constructing up to 1 billion nanoscopically precisely arranged mirrors, the limiting effect is the reflectivity, which currently is limited by the optimum multilayered Dielectric Mirrors with 99.9999% reflectivity. The problem with this is that readings take 1.5 hours, it is not a great real-time sensor.

Now we’re to 2.28*10^18 times our original.

For the Graviometric Interferometer to work at full sensitivity, the laser has to be more powerful, but not melt it. Details like this is why we keep engineers around, that and to let us know if your genius idea is likely to explode.

The laser enters the interferometer at 200 Watts to not melt it, but needs to be at about 750 KiloWatts. To boost the power of its laser 3750 times without actually using more power, more mirrors. "Power recycling" mirrors placed between the laser source and the beam splitter. Like the beam splitter, the power recycling mirror is only partly reflective ('one-way mirror'). In a power recycling mirror, light from the laser passes through the transparent side of the mirror to reach the beam splitter where it is split and directed down the arms of the interferometer. The instrument's alignment ensures that nearly all of the reflected laser light from the arms follows a path back to the recycling mirrors rather than to the photodetector. Laser light coming from the arms is reflected back into the interferometer (hence 'recycling') where those photons add to the ones first entering. This process greatly boosts the power of the beam without needing to generate a 750 KiloWatt beam at the outset. There is some room to work with here on the materials, but the only materials I know right now, 200 Watts to 750 KiloWatts is what we can safely manage.

The boost in power generated by power recycling sharpens the interference pattern that appears when the two beams are superimposed--the pattern that will tell scientists if a gravitational wave has passed. The sharper the pattern, the easier it becomes to recognize the fingerprints of gravitational waves.

The 3750x improvement brings us to 8.56*10^21

'Signal Recycling' Mirrors, like power recycling, enhance the output signal further, another 3750 fold.

The Signal Recycling 3750x improvement brings us to 3.21*10^25

The final enhancement means we can detect a galaxy class starship travelling at warp 9 from 43 light-years away using the Hellas Bassin Gravitic Interferometer.

A final enhancement, the Strontium-87 Optical Lattice Clock is about 1109 times more accurate than the Strontium-87 laser measurement. So we can increase the sensitivity to even more.

With the Strontium-87 Optical Lattice Clock enhancement to the Hellas Bassin Gravitic Interferometer, we can detect a starship that is 1109 times less massive than the 4.85 million tonne Federationalist Galaxy-class starship, or travelling about 1/33rd slower. Slower is harder to detect, so about warp 3.14 instead of warp 9. I was hoping to make it so that if someone wanted to sneak up on us they would have to travel at sublight, working on it.

Results may vary. In general twice the distance away is twice as hard to detect. Twice as massive is twice as easy to detect. Twice as fast is four times easier to detect. 

Gravity is not like other forces, it is a fundamental part of the curvature of the space time continuum. There are particles unaffected by electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, but even massless particles like photons are affected by gravity. Gravity waves are hard to detect, but nothing blocks them.

No matter whatever kind of stealth or cloaking device people might try to use, if it has mass and moves, it creates gravity waves, which cannot be shielded against. The faster the object moves and the more massive it is, the easier it is to detect. Unless the object is very small or very slow, the Hellas Bassin Gravitic Interferometer should be able to detect it. This would include wormhole mouths of Stargates and Tardis.

The Hellas Basin Gravitic Interferometer is a major engineering achievement and is a powerful tool for scientific inquiry and acting as an invaluable tool for monitoring massive high velocity objects in an around the Mu Draconis System.

The Hellas Basin is the lowest altitude on AlRaqis and is also the most tectonically stable. The Hellas Bassin Gravitic Interferometer is located far underground in the Hellas Basin to further protect it from outside sources which might disrupts its readings.

The Hellas Basin Gravitic Interferometer is not mobile and given the size of it, it cannot be transported in one piece even aboard a Corpus High-liner. A more portable system needs to be created.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is the mobile solution, which uses three satellites to create the interferometer, instead of a landlocked tunnel with sealed vacuum.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is deployed in deep space where other gravitational and other perturbations can be minimized.

A Strontium-87 Optical Lattice Clock, will maintain time stamps on an order of 5*10^-17 seconds. The satellites each have onboard sensors to monitor 50 nearby pulsars to precisely track their position. A laser tracker will send these data streams to the other satellites so that they can precisely screen for any outside influences.

Instead of firing the interferometer laser down a 10 (or 2300) kilometre long tunnel, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) fired across to its sister satellites over a distance of 1 Astronomical Unit (AU), a distance of 499 light-seconds, approximately 1.5*10^11 meters (150 million kilometres).

We still not use the optimized Dielectric Mirrors with 99.9999% reflectivity to bounce the laser beam 693,147 times to further increase the length of the measured beam to the equivalent of nearly 11 light-years, which would make individual readings take 11 years instead of 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

With all of the enhancements, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) has a net sensitivity of one part in 3.34*10^27.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is rated to detect a Federationalist Galaxy-class starship travelling at Warp 9 (1516 times the speed of light) from a distance of 400 light-years, or sub-light from 11 AU.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) needs to be deployed out beyond the kuiper belt, typically at least 200 AU from Mu Draconis, ideally they are located at about 1000 AU, which is nearest 'flat-space'.

At 1000 AU, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is rated to detect a Federationalist Galaxy-class starship travelling at Warp 2 (10 times the speed of light) or higher.

To completely cover the solar system from 1000 AU, 18 such satellite arrays are needed to be deployed.

Laser Interferometer Orbital Gravity Observatory Array (LIOGOA, we need a better acronym)

When an interphase (a thinny) is present, the gravity waves from the neighboring continuum is 'close' enough that we can measure its Gravitic Waves.

Gravity Waves are extremely difficult to measure. A standard solar mass star emits only 79 megawatts of gravity waves. A standard terrestrial mass planet emits only 273 watts. 

As a gravitational wave travels, they alternately compress and expand objects in perpendicular directions, making them distinctive to pick out against other potential interference. As a bulk phenomenon, gravitational waves are only observable in the context of two or more masses -- a single point can never measure a gravitational wave, since locally (at a point) space-time is flat. Only with respect to another body can the induced gravitational strain be measured.

This two body requirement makes Gravimetric Interferometry ideal of finding intephases, because the interference of the gravity waves from the two different continuum is measurable as they interact in locations where the two continuum are 'nearby’.

This proposed The Laser Interferometer Orbital Gravity Observatory Array (LIOGOA) is sensitive enough to be able to detect interphases and to be able to locate their direction vector.

The Laser Interferometer Orbital Gravity Observatory Array (LIOGOA) measures the interference from three precisely timed pulsed beams laser to measure the disturbances of spacetime cased by these Gravity Waves.

The Laser Interferometer Orbital Gravity Observatory Array (LIOGOA) is 3 arrays of 3 satellites each orbiting in carefully controlled orbits and orientations in the outer solar system.

The individual components are not especially large, scaled down to masses of 250 kilograms each, 9 total; so they can be lanched via standard probe launching systems.

This is a very flexible system and can be deployed from a starship with probe launching capabilities with some science, engineering and technical oversight.

We have made several improvements, increasing the sensitivity 100*400*10 = 400,000 times more sensitive than previous orbital Gravity Wave Interferometers, and billions of time more sensitive than the standard gravitic sensors aboard capital class starships. Only the Gravitmetric Sensors of the Argus Panoptes Array or the Multiplexing Interdimensional Deep Space Array System (MIDAS) is more sensitive, but are nowhere near as flexible.

B. Sensitivity Improvements.

1. Improvements in clocks:

Previous Laser Interferometers have been limited to about 1 femtosecond time interval (10^-15 seconds), using Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillators, also known as a microwave oscillator using 5 centimeter cylindrical shaped sapphire crystals cooled to about -269 Centigrade (4.3 Kelvin).

Laser pulses have been able to get to about 10 times faster, 100 attoseconds (10^-16 seconds), these ultra-short light pulses with a stabilized optical phase were the state of the art for some time, and considered the possible physical limit for continuous time measurement accuracy with stability durations of seconds or more.

Previously, stabilization of the position of the field maxima was only possible with a precision of about 100 attoseconds (10^-16 s, corresponding to 1/20 of the wavelength). Currently, using multiple pulses down to 10 attoseconds  (1 x 10^-17 s, 1/200 of the wavelength).

Overall, this makes for a 100 fold increase in the sensitivity for interferometers.

2. Longer baseline and use of flatter space.

Typical Space Laser Interferometers have a baseline of 8 light-seconds. This is a limit based upon various fluxes present in the inner solar system.

By moving into the relatively broad expanse in the outer solar system, but before the kuiper belt, we estimate was can increase the baseline to 6.4 Astronomical Units, which increases the sensitivity 400 fold.

3. Multiple Arrays.

By having 3 separate arrays roughly equidistant, we can further increase the sensitivity and the resolution of the Laser Interferometer, but also, with well timed coordination of the three arrays, we can also be able to triangulate the location of the disturbance being measured.

4. Net sensitivity.

Net sensitivity is such that the gravity waves from a standard stellar mass located in a 'nearest convenient parallel dimension; would be detectable at a range of 3000 Astronomical Units, and a standard terrestrial mass at a range of 43 Astronomical units. Masses about that of your average 400 kilometer diameter asteroid from 1 Astronomical Unit, which would be about the mass of the minimum mass artificial Traversable Lorentzian Wormhole.

C. Deployment.

When an interphase is present, the gravity waves from the neighboring continuum is 'close' enough that we can measure its Gravitic Waves.

According to the Brane Cosmology , not all points in neighboring continuum are coincident and concurrent. Some locations are much closer than others. We are expecting these locations to fall into the 'nearest convenient parallel dimension category' and that their 'distance' is such that we could be able to detect differences in the gravity waves in those systems and to be able to locate the ideal intersection.

D. Expectations.

Surveys performed by Scientist N’Lynn and Captain Amazon Lily have provided good candidate star systems which we should deploy the Laser Interferometer Orbital Gravity Observatory Array (LIOGOA).

At the very least, we are hoping that the expected Traversable Lorentzian Wormhole will be present in the system. We expect these to NOT be stellar-mass Traversable Lorentzian Wormhole systems, but substantially less massive artificially Traversable Lorentzian Wormhole systems on the mass scale of large asteroids.

Asteroid mass wormholes, even large ones are not likely to be directly detectable via a Gravity Wave Observatory unless we are within an astronomical unit, but if these wormholes are being used for continuum access, the Gravity Wave Observatory should be able to detect the gravity waves emanating from those other continuum.

Secondarily, we hope that the Gravity Wave Observatory will be able to detect the gravity wave presence of the 'nearest convenient parallel dimension', if it is 'nearby’ in the sense that it’s brane is close enough that it’s gravity waves are transmitted thru the brane from the neighboring continuum.

The points of intersection, or near intersection of these branes can be hyper-stimulated using various banned subspace disruption weapons, Tri-Cobalt Devices and even Omega Molecules, which all could artificially induce an interphase.

Knowing exactly where the distances between the continuum are the closest, one could optimize the creation of such an interphase, but also where one could send a message thru.

Thirdly, it is hoped that if the expected traversable wormhole will be present in the system, and if the 'distances' between the two different branes are close enough, that the Gravity Wave Observatory could allow for navigating enough to at least be able to transmit a message to the other continuum, thru the brane, and optimally be able to figure out how to physically traverse to said continuum or at least put thru a probe.

If the access thru to the neighboring continuum is thru the expected traversable wormhole, then with some navigational guidance and no small amount of trial and error, electromagnetic and possibly even subspace communications could be possible. If not, then finding the closest intersection point, a special high-powered artificial gravity emitter like those on capital class starships, but many orders of magnitude more powerful, could be used to transmit a signal thru the brane. The Orion Confederation should be able to detect such signal flux if present, and it is within their capability to be able to emit the same, similar or even a coherent radion beam thru their own ship’s main deflector dish.

Note: Someone should devise a message that would be understood by the intended audience, but not others.

Gravity Wave Antenna Sensitivities

The sensitivity of your 'basic' 3000 kilometre Laser Interferometer Gravity Observatory is about 1 standard solar mass at 11 astronomical units or 1 standard terrestrial mass at 80 light-seconds.

This is about at least 25 million times more sensitive than the best shipboard gravitational wave detectors. Although there are versions I could envision that use remote probes that could improve upon that considerably.

With possible sensitivity upgrades, including the 6.5 astronomical unit baseline, is an improvement of about 268 million times more sensitive. This translates to 1 standard solar mass at 7000 astronomical units (1/9th LY) or 1 standard terrestrial mass at 100 astronomical units.

Baseline  Range (Solar, Terrestrial)

12.5 m  12.5 AU, 90 LS

25 m     16 AU, 112.5 LS

50 m     20 AU, 144 LS

100 m   25 AU, 180 LS

200 m   32 AU, 225 LS

400 m   40 AU, 288 LS

800 m   50 AU, 360 LS

You should be able to interpolate from here.

Gravity Waves are only detected by two masses moving. When you detect the sun’s gravity waves, it is based upon its spinning on its axis. When you detect a terrestrial’s gravity waves, it is based upon spinning on its axis and orbiting around the sun. If it was not spinning nor moving in reference to another mass, it would not show up.