The Earth's Magnetosphere Could be Used as a Gravitational Wave Observatory - by BrianKoberlein
One of the challenges of gravitational wave astronomy is moving its abilities beyond observations of stellar mass mergers. The collision of two black holes or neutron stars releases a tremendous amount of gravitational energy, but even this is a challenge to detect. Gravitational waves do not couple strongly with most matter, so it takes a tremendous amount of sensitive observations to observe.
The observation of high-frequency gravitational waves is one of the holy grails of gravitational wave astronomy. According to the standard model of cosmology, these high-frequency waves should have been produced during the early period of the big bang, particularly as a result of the inflationary period. As such, they would provide detailed evidence of both early inflation and cosmic evolution.
So this new work looks at how they might be observed indirectly. Although high-frequency gravitational waves are faint, they do interact with the material they pass through, squeezing and flexing them ever so slightly. This is true not just for matter, but also for magnetic fields. When a gravitational wave passes through a magnetic field, the squeezing and flexing shift the magnetic field, which can produce photons.
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