Ultra-high-intensity lasers for gravitational wave generation and detection

Ultra-high-intensity lasers are used to generate and detect short-pulse or high-frequency-gravitational-waves (HFGWs) in the laboratory. According to accepted definitions HFGWs have frequencies in excess of 100kHz (pulses less than 10 mu ps duration) and may have the most promise for terrestrial generation and practical, scientific, and commercial application. Shanghai-Institute-of-Optics-and-Fine-Mechanics' (SIOM) lasers are described whose action against targets emulates a double-star system and generates a GW flux at a focus midway between two such GW-generation lasers. The detector is a coupling-system of semitransparent beam-splitters and a narrow, 2.5-millimeter-radius, pulsed-Gaussian-laser-detection beam passing through a static 15T magnetic field. It is sensitive to GW amplitudes of similar to 10(-32) and detects the 10(-17) to similar to 10(-32)-amplitude GWs to be generated, with signal-to-noise ratios greater than one The experimental approach, which involves new mechanisms (e.g., high-intensity lasers causing > 1.5x10(5)N-impulsive force on laser targets), is quite different from previous work involving older technology. It is concluded that the GW-generation and detection apparatus is now feasible and will result in a successful laboratory experiment to test theory and this paper will serve to attract ideas from various disciplines to improve the prospects for a successful experiment. As a space technology application, if the Ultra-high-intensity lasers were space borne and at lunar distance (e.g., at the Moon and the lunar L-3 libration point) and the quadrupole formalism approximately holds for GW radiators (laser targets) many GW wavelengths apart, then the HFGW power would be about 2x10(3) W and the flux would be about 10(13) to 10(14) Wm(-2) during each pulse at an infinitesimal focal spot between the laser targets. The focal spot could be located at any point on or below the surface of the Earth by adjusting the laser timing and laser target orientations.