An interactive gravitational-wave detector model for museums and
          fairs

Cooper, S. J.; Green, A. C.; Middleton, H.; Berry, C. P. L.; Butler, E.; Collins, Christopher; Gettings, C.; Hoyland, D.; Jones, A. W.; Lindon, J. H.; Romero-Shaw, I. M.; Stevenson, S. P.; Takeva, E. P.; Vinciguerra, S.; Vecchio, A.; Mow–Lowry, C. M.; Freise, A.

doi:10.1119/10.0003534

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The remaining deviation is not statistically significant, but may be due to weak correlations between successive shots, which violate the assumption of independence required for Eq. (11). Overall, the results are consistent with the expected scaling for a predominantly shot noise limited device in the presence of some technical noise.…”

Section: Shot Noise and The Measurement Of Gravitational Wavessupporting

confidence: 84%

“…The resulting signals are so small that measurements in the frequency bands relevant to the final moments of black hole and neutron star mergers are limited by the inherent quantum shot noise of the laser used in the interferometer [13]. Thus there is value in incorporating quantum mechanics into the description of the interferometer, going beyond the classical framework [11] of understanding interferometers with electromagnetic waves. With only one qubit, a quantum circuit model can capture all the salient features of a classical model and demonstrate the effects of quantum projection noise.…”

Section: Ligo As a Quantum Circuitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This geometry, depicted in Fig. 1, captures the essential physics of the system and is often used to illustrate the operation of LIGO [11,15]. We map the two directions that a photon travels in the interferometer to the two states of a single qubit in the quantum circuit.…”

Section: Ligo As a Quantum Circuitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Applications for entanglement in quantum metrology include spin squeezed clocks [5], enhanced biological imaging [6], remote sensing with EPR states [7], and the detection of gravitational waves [8][9][10]. Our focus for this paper will be on the particularly charismatic example of LIGO [11], which made the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015, realizing a century-old prediction by Einstein [8]. At the heart of LIGO is the most sensitive interferometer ever built, whose sensitivity has recently been enhanced by quantum squeezing of light [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling Quantum Enhanced Sensing on a Quantum Computer

Tran¹,

Narong²,

Cooper³

2022

Preprint

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Quantum computers allow for direct simulation of the quantum interference and entanglement used in modern interferometry experiments with applications ranging from biological sensing to gravitational wave detection. Inspired by recent developments in quantum sensing at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), here we present two quantum circuit models that demonstrate the role of quantum mechanics and entanglement in modern precision sensors. We implemented these quantum circuits on IBM quantum processors, using a single qubit to represent independent photons traveling through the LIGO interferometer and two entangled qubits to illustrate the improved sensitivity that LIGO has achieved by using non-classical states of light. The one-qubit interferometer illustrates how projection noise in the measurement of independent photons corresponds to phase sensitivity at the standard quantum limit. In the presence of technical noise on a real quantum computer, this interferometer achieves the sensitivity of 11% above the standard quantum limit. The two-qubit interferometer demonstrates how entanglement circumvents the limits imposed by the quantum shot noise, achieving the phase sensitivity 17% below the standard quantum limit. These experiments illustrate the role that quantum mechanics plays in setting new records for precision measurements on platforms like LIGO. The experiments are broadly accessible, remotely executable activities that are well suited for introducing undergraduate students to quantum computation, error propagation, and quantum sensing on real quantum hardware.

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Section: Shot Noise and The Measurement Of Gravitational Wavessupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Ligo As a Quantum Circuitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ligo As a Quantum Circuitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Modeling Quantum Enhanced Sensing on a Quantum Computer

Tran¹,

Narong²,

Cooper³

2022

Preprint

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Continuous gravitational waves in the lab: Recovering audio signals with a table-top optical microphone

Gardner

Middleton

Liu

et al. 2022

American Journal of Physics

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Gravitational-wave observatories around the world are searching for continuous waves: persistent signals from sources, such as spinning neutron stars. These searches use sophisticated statistical techniques to look for weak signals in noisy data. In this paper, we demonstrate these techniques using a table-top model gravitational-wave detector: a Michelson interferometer where sound is used as an analog for gravitational waves. Using signal processing techniques from continuous-wave searches, we demonstrate the recovery of tones with constant and wandering frequencies. We also explore the use of the interferometer as a teaching tool for educators in physics and electrical engineering by using it as an “optical microphone” to capture music and speech. A range of filtering techniques used to recover signals from noisy data are detailed in the supplementary material of this article. Here, we present the highlights of our results using a combined notch plus Wiener filter and the statistical log minimum mean-square error (logMMSE) estimator. Using these techniques, we easily recover recordings of simple chords and drums, but complex music and speech are more challenging. This demonstration can be used by educators in undergraduate laboratories and can be adapted for communicating gravitational-wave and signal-processing topics to nonspecialist audiences.

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An interactive gravitational-wave detector model for museums and fairs

Cited by 2 publications

References 51 publications

Modeling Quantum Enhanced Sensing on a Quantum Computer

Modeling Quantum Enhanced Sensing on a Quantum Computer

Continuous gravitational waves in the lab: Recovering audio signals with a table-top optical microphone

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