Generation of Gravitational Waves with Nuclear Reactions

Abstract

The problem of efficient generation of High Frequency Gravitational Waves (HFGWs) and pulses of Gravitational Radiation might find a reasonably simple solution by employing nuclear matter, especially isomers. A fissioning isomer not only rotates at extremely high frequency ({approx} 3.03x1024 s-1), but is also highly deformed in the first stages of fission (the nucleus is rotating and made asymmetric 'before' fission). Thus one achieves significant impulsive forces (e.g., 3.67x108 N) acting over extremely short time spans (e.g., 3.3x10-22 s). Alternatively, a pulsed particle beam, which could include antimatter, could trigger nuclear reactions and build up a coherent GW as the particles move through a target mass. The usual difficulty with HFGWs generated by nuclear reactions is the small dimensions of their nuclear-reaction volumes, that is, the small moment of inertia and submicroscopic radii of gyration (e.g., 10-16 m) of the nuclear-mass system. Such a difficulty is overcome by utilizing clusters of nuclear material, whose nuclear reactions are in synchronization (through the use of a computer controlled logic system) and are at a large distance apart, e.g., meters, kilometers, etc. The effective radius of gyration of the overall nuclear mass system is enormous and if the quadrupole formalism holds even approximately,more » then significant HFGW is generated, for example up to 8.5x1010 W to 1.64x1025 W bursts for the transient asymmetrical spinning nucleus case. In this preliminary analysis, possible conceptual designs of reactors suitable for the generation of HFGWs are discussed as well as applications to space technology. In an optimized dual-beam design, GW amplitudes on the order of A {approx} 0.005 are theoretically achieved in the laboratory, which might have interesting general-relativity and nuclear-physics consequences.« less