Lunar surface gravimeter and the search for gravitational radiation
A search for gravitational radiation predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity was made, using the Moon as an instrumented antenna. Data were analyzed from the Lunar Surface Gravimeter Experiment (LSG), part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) deployed on the moon. It was a component of the United States of America's Apollo 17 manned space flight mission in December, 1972. The LSG can observe accelerations of the lunar surface in the frequency range from approximately 0 to 16 hertz with a nominal sensitivity of approximately a few parts in 10/sup 9/ of lunar gravity. A secondary objective of the LSG was to measure the tidal effects on the moon and to serve as a one axis seismometer. A calculation of the sensitivity of gravitational radiation detectors enables computation of upper limits of the incident flux for the frequency regions searched. These included the millihertz region, where a search for excitation of the fundamental free modes of the moon established an upper limit of 1.4 x 10/sup 13/ ergs/(cm/sup 2/-sec) for continuous gravitational radiation; and the 1 hertz region, where an exploration of higher order free mode excitations set a maximum flux of 5.7 x 10/sup 12/ ergs/(cm/sup 2/-sec). Also described is an experiment to search for pulsed radiation with frequency components in the 1 hertz region. Seismic data from the LSG is converted into a form suitable for performing a coincidence analysis with two of the gravitational radiation detectors at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, and the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. Continuous lunar seismic data in the time period December 15-25, 1973 was converted into the format of the absolute value of the time derivative of the power.
- Research Organization:
- Maryland Univ., College Park (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6249020
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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