Abstract

A recent proposal describes space based gravitational wave (GW) detection with optical lattice atomic clocks [S. Kolkowitz, I. Pikovsk, N. Langellier, M.D. Lukin, R.L. Walsworth, J. Ye, Phys. Rev. D 94, 124043 (2016)]. Based on their setup, we propose a new measurement method for gravitational wave detection in low frequency with optical lattice atomic clocks. In our method, n successive Doppler signals are collected and the summation for all these signals is made to improve the sensitivity of the low-frequency GW detection. In particular, the improvement is adjustable by the number of Doppler signals, which is equivalent to that the length between two atomic clocks is increased. Thus, the same sensitivity can be reached but with shorter distance, even though the acceleration noises lead to failing to achieve the anticipated improvement below the inflection point of frequency which is determined by the quantum projection noise. Our result is timely for the ongoing development of space-born observatories aimed at studying physical and astrophysical effects associated with low-frequency GW.

Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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在低频范围内利用基于空间的光学原子钟进行重力波检测的潜在优势协议

摘要

最近的提议描述了使用光学晶格原子钟的基于空间的重力波（GW）检测[S. Kolkowitz，I。Pikovsk，N。Langellier，医学博士Lukin，RL Walsworth，J。Ye，物理学。D版94，124043（2016）]。基于它们的设置，我们提出了一种利用光学晶格原子钟进行低频引力波检测的新测量方法。在我们的方法中，收集了n个连续的多普勒信号，并对所有这些信号求和，以提高低频GW检测的灵敏度。特别地，该改进可以通过多普勒信号的数量来调节，这等同于增加两个原子钟之间的长度。因此，即使加速度噪声导致未能在由量子投影噪声确定的频率拐点以下实现预期的改善，也可以实现相同的灵敏度，但是距离更短。

图形概要