First-level Dulkyn gravitational wave detector

Abstract

The Dulkyn scientific and technical project [1–5] has as its goal the creation of a compact detector designed both as a detector of the space base-line in the LISA international project and for the detection of the theoretically predicted gravitation of periodic gravitational waves produced by binary relativistic astrophysical objects in the range 10–10 Hz [6–9]. The detector consists of independent laser measurement systems constructed in the form of triangular and pentagonal resonators with generation of standing or traveling waves. Each system consists of two resonators situated on a common rigid base with mirrors and active medium that supports generation of optical radiation with mutually orthogonal linear polarization. The two-resonator laser system utilizes the effect of modulation of the phase of optical radiation by means of gravitational wave action (i.e., the electrodynamic response of the detector), which dominates phase modulation caused by the gravitational-wave evolution of the elastically bound mirrors (i.e., the elastodynamic response of the detector) [10]. Because of the geometric nonequivalence of the resonators in the two-resonator laser system, information about gravitational waves is discovered from the variations in their difference frequency. The Dulkyn scientific and technical project has successfully undergone the stage of development, creation of a passive two-circuit interferometer and its assembly, adjustment, and alignment [11, 12], and an active two-resonator laser system has been created on the basis of the project [13]. The project has since entered into the third stage, that of experimentation for the purpose of calibration of the detector. The first part of the third stage (“lunar test”) includes the creation of the first-level gravitational wave detector (GWD-1) along with an experiment lasting 6–8 months on calibration of the detector and determination of the principal sources of instrument noise in the working frequency band for the purpose of developing methods of effective suppression of this noise. Validation of the precision with which the Einstein equivalence principle is satisfied with respect to the universality of the law of gravitational “red” shift may be carried out simultaneously [14, 15]. Measurement Techniques, Vol. 52, No. 6, 2009