Neutron displacement noise-free interferometer for gravitational-wave detection

An interferometer design that cancels all displacement noises of its test masses and maintains a gravitational-wave (GW) signal by combining multiple detector signals is called a displacement noise-free interferometer (DFI). The idea has been considered previously for a laser interferometer. However, a limitation of a laser DFI is that its sensitive frequency band is too high for astrophysical GW sources, similar to 10(5) Hz even for a kilometer-sized interferometer. To circumvent this limitation, in this paper, we propose a neutron DFI, in which neutrons are used instead of light. Since neutrons have velocities much lower than the speed of light, the sensitive frequency band of a neutron DFI can be lowered down to similar to 10(-1) Hz. Therefore, a neutron DFI can be utilized for detecting GWs that are inaccessible by an ordinary laser interferometer on the ground.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a neutron displacement noise-free interferometer that utilizes neutrons instead of light to lower the sensitive frequency band, making it capable of detecting gravitational waves inaccessible by ordinary laser interferometers.