arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Kip S. Thorne.
We review current best estimates of the strength and detectability of the gravitational waves from a variety of sources, for both ground-based and space-based detectors, and we describe the information carried by the waves.
The LIGO-II gravitational-wave interferometers (ca. 2006--2008) are designed to have sensitivities at about the standard quantum limit (SQL) near 100 Hz. This paper describes and analyzes possible designs for subsequent, LIGO-III interferometers that can beat the SQL. These designs are identical to a conventional broad-band interferometer (without signal recycling), except for new input and/or output optics. Three designs are analyzed: (i) a "squeezed-input interferometer" (conceived by Unruh based on earlier work of Caves) in which squeezed vacuum with frequency-dependent (FD) squeeze angle is injected into the interferometer's dark port; (ii) a "variational-output" interferometer (conceived in a different form by Vyatchanin, Matsko and Zubova), in which homodyne detection with FD homodyne phase is performed on the output light; and (iii) a "squeezed-variational interferometer" with squeezed input and FD-homodyne output. It is shown that the FD squeezed-input light can be produced by sending ordinary squeezed light through two successive Fabry-Perot filter cavities before injection into the interferometer, and FD-homodyne detection can be achieved by sending the output light through two filter cavities before ordinary homodyne detection. With anticipated technology and with laser powers comparable to that planned for LIGO-II, these interferometers can beat the amplitude SQL by factors in the range from 3 to 5, corresponding to event rate increases between ~30 and ~100 over the rate for a SQL-limited interferometer.
Results are presented from high-precision computations of the orbital evolution and emitted gravitational waves for a stellar-mass object spiraling into a massive black hole in a slowly shrinking, circular, equatorial orbit. The focus of these computations is inspiral near the innermost stable circular orbit (isco)---more particularly, on orbits for which the angular velocity Omega is 0.03 < Omega/Omega_{isco} < 1. The computations are based on the Teukolsky-Sasaki-Nakamura formalism, and the results are tabulated in a set of functions that are of order unity and represent relativistic corrections to low-orbital-velocity formulas. These tables can form a foundation for future design studies for the LISA space-based gravitational-wave mission. A first survey of applications to LISA is presented: Signal to noise ratios S/N are computed and graphed as functions of the time-evolving gravitational-wave frequency for representative values of the hole's mass M and spin a and the inspiraling object's mass μ, with the distance to Earth chosen to be r_o = 1 Gpc. These S/N's show a very strong dependence on the black-hole spin, as well as on M and μ. A comparison with predicted event rates shows strong promise for detecting these waves, but not beyond about 1Gpc if the inspiraling object is a white dwarf or neutron star. This argues for a modest lowering of LISA's noise floor. A brief discussion is given of the prospects for extracting information from the observed waves
There are three regimes of gravitational-radiation-reaction-induced inspiral for a compact body with mass mu, in a circular, equatorial orbit around a Kerr black hole with mass M>>mu: (i) The "adiabatic inspiral regime", in which the body gradually descends through a sequence of circular, geodesic orbits. (ii) A "transition regime", near the innermost stable circular orbit (isco). (iii) The "plunge regime", in which the body travels on a geodesic from slightly below the isco into the hole's horizon. This paper gives an analytic treatment of the transition regime and shows that, with some luck, gravitational waves from the transition might be measurable by the space-based LISA mission.
An analysis is given of thermoelastic noise (thermal noise due to thermoelastic dissipation) in finite sized test masses of laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors. Finite-size effects increase the thermoelastic noise by a modest amount; for example, for the sapphire test masses tentatively planned for LIGO-II and plausible beam-spot radii, the increase is less than or of order 10 per cent. As a side issue, errors are pointed out in the currently used formulas for conventional, homogeneous thermal noise (noise associated with dissipation which is homogeneous and described by an imaginary part of the Young's modulus) in finite sized test masses. Correction of these errors increases the homogeneous thermal noise by less than or of order 5 per cent for LIGO-II-type configurations.
For each optical topology of an interferometric gravitational wave detector, quantum mechanics dictates a minimum optical power (the ``energetic quantum limit'') to achieve a given sensitivity. For standard topologies, when one seeks to beat the standard quantum limit by a substantial factor, the energetic quantum limit becomes impossibly large. Intracavity readout schemes may do so with manageable optical powers.
A description and analysis are given of a ``speed meter'' for monitoring a classical force that acts on a test mass. This speed meter is based on two microwave resonators (``dual resonators''), one of which couples evanescently to the position of the test mass. The sloshing of the resulting signal between the resonators, and a wise choice of where to place the resonators' output waveguide, produce a signal in the waveguide that (for sufficiently low frequencies) is proportional to the test-mass velocity (speed) rather than its position. This permits the speed meter to achieve force-measurement sensitivities better than the standard quantum limit (SQL), both when operating in a narrow-band mode and a wide-band mode. A scrutiny of experimental issues shows that it is feasible, with current technology, to construct a demonstration speed meter that beats the wide-band SQL by a factor 2. A concept is sketched for an adaptation of this speed meter to optical frequencies; this adaptation forms the basis for a possible LIGO-III interferometer that could beat the gravitational-wave standard quantum limit h_SQL, but perhaps only by a factor 1/xi = h_SQL/h ~ 3 (constrained by losses in the optics) and at the price of a very high circulating optical power --- larger by 1/xi^2 than that required to reach the SQL.
Among all forms of routine human activity, the one which produces the strongest gravity-gradient noise in interferometric gravitational-wave detectors (e.g. LIGO) is the beginning and end of weight transfer from one foot to the other during walking. The beginning and end of weight transfer entail sharp changes (timescale tau ~ 20msec) in the horizontal jerk (first time derivative of acceleration) of a person's center of mass. These jerk pairs, occuring about twice per second, will produce gravity-gradient noise in LIGO in the frequency band 2.5 Hz <~ f <~ 1/(2 tau) ~= 25 Hz with the form sqrt{S_h(f)} \~0.6 X 10^{-23} Hz^{-1/2} (f/10Hz)^{-6} (sum_i (r_i/10m)^{-6})^{1/2}. Here the sum is over all the walking people, r_i is the distance of the i'th person from the nearest interferometer test mass, and we estimate this formula to be accurate to within a factor 3. To ensure that this noise is neglible in advanced LIGO interferometers, people should be prevented from coming nearer to the test masses than r ~= 10m. A r ~= 10m exclusion zone will also reduce to an acceptable level gravity gradient noise from the slamming of a door and the striking of a fist against a wall. The dominant gravity-gradient noise from automobiles and other vehicles is probably that from decelerating to rest. To keep this below the sensitivity of advanced LIGO interferometers will require keeping vehicles at least 30 meters from all test masses.
Gravitational-wave data analysis requires a detailed understanding of the highly relativistic, late stages of inspiral of neutron-star and black-hole binaries. A promising method to compute the late inspiral and its emitted waves is numerical relativity in co-rotating coordinates. The coordinates must be kept co-rotating via an appropriate choice of numerical relativity's lapse and shift functions. This article proposes a model problem for testing the ability of various lapse and shift prescriptions to keep the coordinates co-rotating.
It is shown analytically that an external tidal gravitational field increases the secular stability of a fully general relativistic, rigidly rotating neutron star that is near marginal stability, protecting it against gravitational collapse. This stabilization is shown to result from the simple fact that the energy $δM(Q,R)$ required to raise a tide on such a star, divided by the square of the tide's quadrupole moment $Q$, is a decreasing function of the star's radius $R$, $(d/dR)[δM(Q,R)/Q^2]<0$ (where, as $R$ changes, the star's structure is changed in accord with the star's fundamental mode of radial oscillation). If $(d/dR)[δM(Q,R)/Q^2]$ were positive, the tidal coupling would destabilize the star. As an application, a rigidly rotating, marginally secularly stable neutron star in an inspiraling binary system will be protected against secular collapse, and against dynamical collapse, by tidal interaction with its companion. The ``local-asymptotic-rest-frame'' tools used in the analysis are somewhat unusual and may be powerful in other studies of neutron stars and black holes interacting with an external environment. As a byproduct of the analysis, in an appendix the influence of tidal interactions on mass-energy conservation is elucidated.
When ambient seismic waves pass near an interferometric gravitational-wave detector, they induce density perturbations in the earth which produce fluctuating gravitational forces on the interferometer's test masses. These forces mimic a stochastic background of gravitational waves and thus constitute noise. We compute this noise using the theory of multimode Rayleigh and Love waves propagating in a layered medium that approximates the geological strata at the LIGO sites. We characterize the noise by a transfer function $T(f) \equiv \tilde x(f)/\tilde W(f)$ from the spectrum of direction averaged ground motion $\tilde W(f)$ to the spectrum of test mass motion $\tilde x(f) = L\tilde h(f)$ (where $L$ is the length of the interferometer's arms, and $\tilde h(f)$ is the spectrum of gravitational-wave noise). This paper's primary foci are (i) a study of how $T(f)$ depends on the various seismic modes; (ii) an attempt to estimate which modes are excited at the LIGO sites at quiet and noisy times; and (iii) a corresponding estimate of the seismic gravity-gradient noise level. At quiet times the noise is below the benchmark noise level of ``advanced LIGO interferometers'' (although not by much near 10 Hz); it may significantly exceed this level at noisy times. The lower edge of our quiet-time noise is a limit beyond which there is little gain from further improvements in vibration isolation and thermal noise, unless one also reduces seismic gravity-gradient noise. Two methods of reduction are discussed: monitoring the earth's density perturbations, computing their gravitational forces, and correcting the data for those forces; and constructing narrow moats around the interferometers' test masses to shield out the fundamental-mode Rayleigh waves, which we suspect dominate at quiet times.
Gravitational radiation arising from the inspiral and merger of binary black holes (BBH's) is a promising candidate for detection by kilometer-scale interferometric gravitational wave observatories. This paper discusses a serious obstacle to searches for such radiation and to the interpretation of any observed waves: the inability of current computational techniques to evolve a BBH through its last ~10 orbits of inspiral (~100 radians of gravitational-wave phase). A new set of numerical-relativity techniques is proposed for solving this ``Intermediate Binary Black Hole'' (IBBH) problem: (i) numerical evolutions performed in coordinates co-rotating with the BBH, in which the metric coefficients evolve on the long timescale of inspiral, and (ii) techniques for mathematically freezing out gravitational degrees of freedom that are not excited by the waves.
If MACHOs are black holes of mass about 0.5 solar mass, they must have been formed in the early universe when the temperature was about 1 GeV. We estimate that in this case in our galaxy's halo out to about 50kpc there exist about half billion black hole binaries whose coalescence times are comparable to the age of the universe, so that the coalescence rate will be about five hundredth events/year/galaxy. This suggests that we can expect a few events/year within 15Mpc. The gravitational waves from such coalescing black hole MACHOs can be detected by the first generation of interferometers in the LIGO/VIRGO/TAMA/GEO network. Therefore, the existence of black hole MACHOs can be tested within the next five years by gravitational waves.
In the coming decade, gravitational waves will convert the study of general relativistic aspects of black holes and stars from a largely theoretical enterprise to a highly interactive, observational/theoretical one. For example, gravitational-wave observations should enable us to observationally map the spacetime geometries around quiescient black holes, study quantitatively the highly nonlinear vibrations of curved spacetime in black-hole collisions, probe the structures of neutron stars and their equation of state, search for exotic types of general relativistic objects such as boson stars, soliton stars, and naked singularities, and probe aspects of general relativity that have never yet been seen such as the gravitational fields of gravitons and the influence of gravitational-wave tails on radiation reaction.
A summary is given of the current status and plans for gravitational-wave searches at all plausible wavelengths, from the size of the observable universe to a few kilometers. The anticipated scientific payoff from these searches is described, including expectations for detailed studies of black holes and neutron stars, high-accuracy tests of general relativity, and hopes for the discovery of exotic new kinds of objects.
This article reviews current efforts and plans for gravitational-wave detection, the gravitational-wave sources that might be detected, and the information that the detectors might extract from the observed waves. Special attention is paid to (i) the LIGO/VIRGO network of earth-based, kilometer-scale laser interferometers, which is now under construction and will operate in the high-frequency band ($1$ to $10^4$ Hz), and (ii) a proposed 5-million-kilometer-long Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), which would fly in heliocentric orbit and operate in the low-frequency band ($10^{-4}$ to $1$ Hz). LISA would extend the LIGO/VIRGO studies of stellar-mass ($M\sim2$ to $300 M_\odot$) black holes into the domain of the massive black holes ($M\sim1000$ to $10^8M_\odot$) that inhabit galactic nuclei and quasars.
A review is given of recent research on gravitational waves from compact bodies and its relevance to the LIGO/VIRGO international network of high-frequency (10 to 10,000 Hz) gravitational-wave detectors, and to the proposed LISA system of low-frequency (0.1 to 0.0001 Hz) detectors. The sources that are reviewed are ordinary binary star systems, binaries made from compact bodies (black holes and neutron stars), the final inspiral and coalescence of compact-body binaries, the inspiral of stars and small black holes into massive black holes, the stellar core collapse that triggers supernovae, and the spin of neutron stars. This paper is adapted from a longer review article entitled ``Gravitational Waves'' (GRP-411) that the author has written for the Proceedings of the Snowmass '94 Summer Study on Particle and Nuclear Astrophysics and Cosmology.
We study the propagator of a non-relativistic, non-interacting particle in any non-relativistic ``time-machine'' spacetime of the type shown in Fig.~1: an external, flat spacetime in which two spatial regions, $V_-$ at time $t_-$ and $V_+$ at time $t_+$, are connected by two temporal wormholes, one leading from the past side of $V_-$ to t the future side of $V_+$ and the other from the past side of $V_+$ to the future side of $V_-$. We express the propagator explicitly in terms of those for ordinary, flat spacetime and for the two wormholes; and from that expression we show that the propagator satisfies completeness and unitarity in the initial and final ``chronal regions'' (regions without closed timelike curves) and its propagation from the initial region to the final region is unitary. However, within the time machine it satisfies neither completeness nor unitarity. We also give an alternative proof of initial-region-to-final-region unitarity based on a conserved current and Gauss's theorem. This proof can be carried over without change to most any non-relativistic time-machine spacetime; it is the non-relativistic version of a theorem by Friedman, Papastamatiou and Simon, which says that for a free scalar field, quantum mechanical unitarity follows from the fact that the classical evolution preserves the Klein-Gordon inner product.