A comparison between matter wave and light wave interferometers for the detection of gravitational waves

Pacôme Delva (1) , Marie-Christine Angonin (1) , Philippe Tourrenc (1)

1 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique

We calculate and compare the response of light wave interferometers and matter wave interferometers to gravitational waves. We find that metric matter wave interferometers will not challenge kilometric light wave interferometers such as Virgo or LIGO, but could be a good candidate for the detection of very low frequency gravitational waves.

Mots clés: Gravitational waves detection; Matter waves; Interferometry

Domaines: Relativité Générale et Cosmologie Quantique [gr-qc]

Pacôme Delva, Marie-Christine Angonin, Philippe Tourrenc. A comparison between matter wave and light wave interferometers for the detection of gravitational waves. Physics Letters A, 2006, 357, pp.249-254. ⟨10.1016/j.physleta.2006.04.103⟩. ⟨hal-00096697⟩