Abstract
In this work, we present the first experimental upper limits on the presence of stochastic gravitational waves in a frequency band with frequencies above 1 THz. We exclude gravitational waves in the frequency bands from left( 2.7 - 14right) times 10^{14} Hz and left( 5 - 12right) times 10^{18} Hz down to a characteristic amplitude of h_c^{mathrm{min}}approx 6times 10^{-26} and h_c^{mathrm{min}}approx 5times 10^{-28} at 95% confidence level, respectively. To obtain these results, we used data from existing facilities that have been constructed and operated with the aim of detecting weakly interacting slim particles, pointing out that these facilities are also sensitive to gravitational waves by graviton to photon conversion in the presence of a magnetic field. The principle applies to all experiments of this kind, with prospects of constraining (or detecting), for example, gravitational waves from light primordial black-hole evaporation in the early universe.
Highlights
With the first detections of gravitational waves (GWs) by the ground-based laser interferometers LIGO and VIRGO, a new tool for astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology has been firmly established [1,2]
One of the main reasons to look for such high frequencies of GWs is that several mechanisms that generate very-high-frequency GWs are expected to have occurred in the early universe just after the big bang
The difficulty in probing such frequency bands is explained by the fact that laser-interferometric detectors such as LIGO, VIRGO and LISA work in the lower frequency part of the spectrum and their working technology is not necessarily ideal for studying very-high-frequency GWs
Summary
With the first detections of gravitational waves (GWs) by the ground-based laser interferometers LIGO and VIRGO, a new tool for astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology has been firmly established [1,2]. GWs are spacetime perturbations predicted by the theory of general relativity that propagate with the speed of light and can be predominantly characterised by their frequency f and the dimensionless (characteristic) amplitude hc Based on these two quantities and the abundance of sources across the full gravitational-wave spectrum, as well as the availability of technology, it becomes clear that different parts of the gravitational-wave spectrum are more accessible than others. We make use of existing data of three such experiments to set first upper limits on ultra-high-frequency GWs. As technology makes progress, future detectors based on the graviton to photon conversion effect may be able to reach sensitivities for GW amplitudes near the nucleosynthesis constraint at the veryhigh-frequency regime. 5, we discuss the prospects to detected ultra-high-frequency GWs with current and future WISP detectors and in Sect.
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