A new approach to detecting gravitational waves via the coupling of gravity to the zero-point energy of the phonon modes of a superconductor

作者：Inan Nader A^*

来源：International Journal of Modern Physics D, 2017, 26(12): 1743031.

DOI：10.1142/S0218271817430313

• Gravitational waves
• Ginzburg-Landau
• Debye
• superconductor
• Cooper pair
• London
• Casimir
• phonons
• curved space-time
• free energy
• quasi-energy
• Weber

The response of a superconductor to a gravitational wave is shown to obey a London-like constituent equation. The Cooper pairs are described by the Ginzburg-Landau free energy density embedded in curved spacetime. The lattice ions are modeled by quantum harmonic oscillators characterized by quasi-energy eigenvalues. This formulation is shown to predict a dynamical Casimir effect since the zero-point energy of the ionic lattice phonons is modulated by the gravitational wave. It is also shown that the response to a gravitational wave is far less for the Cooper pair density than for the ionic lattice. This predicts a "charge separation effect" which can be used to detect the passage of a gravitational wave.

• 出版日期2017-10