Cavity quantum-electrodynamical response to a gravitational wave

Journal Article · Sat Aug 15 04:00:00 EDT 1992 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.46.1239· OSTI ID:7262188

Gerlach, U H ^[1]

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1. Department of Mathematics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210 (United States)

What is the rate of information transfer from a gravitational wave (GW) transmitter to a receiver To this end we consider how electromagnetic modes in a cylindrical cavity respond to circularly polarized gravitational radiation. It is found that a GW changes the refractive index inside the cavity. In fact, the cavity interior becomes birefringent for electromagnetic modes circulating in opposite directions. A linearly polarized cavity mode is thus subjected to Faraday rotation by the GW. In addition, for a cavity mode circulating in the same sense as the GW, the refractive index becomes complex: the cavity interior exhibits antidamping, but only over a finite interval of the applied GW frequency. Inside this interval the cavity mode becomes unstable and its frequency locks onto one-half the GW frequency ( parametric excitation''). Outside this interval the cavity mode breaks the lock-in synchronization with the GW. Instead, the mode evolves in a stable fashion and, like a counterrotating mode, only suffers a frequency pulling away from its unperturbed value. The quantum-mechanical response of the cavity oscillator is expressed as a spinning top precessing around a fictitious magnetic field in a fictitious three-dimensional Lorentz space. In the absence of any impinging GW this magnetic field is timelike and straight up. In the presence of a GW this magnetic field gets changed. The vectorial change is directly related to the frequency and the maximum amplitude of the GW. The resultant magnetic field is tilted and timelike for stable evolution, but spacelike for unstable evolution. The set of observables of a simple harmonic oscillator (SHO) is decomposed into mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive sets of spin-{ital j} objects. They make up the finite representations of the symmetry group of the three-dimensional Lorentz space arena for the cavity oscillator influenced by a GW.

• OSTI ID: 7262188
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States), Journal Name: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States) Vol. 46:4; ISSN PRVDA; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661100* -- Classical & Quantum Mechanics-- (1992-)
662110 -- General Theory of Particles & Fields-- Theory of Fields & Strings-- (1992-)
662120 -- General Theory of Particles & Fields-- Symmetry
Conservation Laws
Currents & Their Properties-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELECTRODYNAMICS
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
EQUATIONS
FIELD THEORIES
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
HAMILTONIANS
HARMONIC OSCILLATOR MODELS
LIE GROUPS
LORENTZ TRANSFORMATIONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS
MECHANICS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUANTUM MECHANICS
QUANTUM OPERATORS
SO GROUPS
SYMMETRY GROUPS
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TIME DEPENDENCE
TRANSFORMATIONS
WAVE EQUATIONS