Gravity Group Astrophysics Cosmology Lunch, "Stochastic Gravitational Wave Backgrounds and Orbital Random Walks"
(More about event)Abstract: We demonstrate that a stochastic gravitational wave background will cause the period of a binary system to undergo a random walk. Since the change in period has an accumulating effect on the phase, using this behavior as a detector has a dramatic advantage --- the sensitivity increases with T^2 instead of the usual T^(1/2). We analyze current data from the Hulse-Taylor binary, and find it already gives an h_c<10^(-14) bound on the gravitational wave strain at twice its orbital frequency. Future observation of other systems or lab designs based on this idea can lead to more stringent bounds on various frequency ranges.
Location: Joseph Henry Room
Date/Time: 04/13/12 at 12:00 pm - 04/13/12 at 1:30 pm
Category: Gravity Group Seminar
Department: Physics