Michael Wentzel (UIUC) “A Superconducting Levitated Detector of Gravitational Waves”‘

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Abstract: A magnetically levitated mass couples to gravity and can act as an effective gravitational wave detector. In this talk, we will discuss show how a superconducting sphere levitated in a quadrupolar magnetic field, when excited by a gravitational wave, can produce magnetic field fluctuations that can be read out using a flux tunable microwave resonator, thus serving as a highly sensitive gravitational wave detector. With a readout operating at the standard quantum limit, such a system could achieve broadband strain noise sensitivity of $h \lesssim 10^{−20} /  \sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ for frequencies of 1 kHz − 1 MHz, opening new corridors for astrophysical probes of new physics.