SLS, GR LLC — Department of Defense STTR Phase II: ST13A-003

Description

We propose to construct a parametric amplifier and oscillator system for generating and detecting gravitational microwaves using a moving, impermeable superconducting membrane as its active element. A configuration of three adjacent, high-Q SRF cylindrical cavities will be constructed, consisting of a single pump cavity separated from a double signal and idler cavity by means of this membrane, which is impermeable to gravitational waves due to the gravitational Meissner effect. The membrane is driven into sinusoidal motion by the radiation pressure exerted on its left side by electromagnetic microwaves that fill the high-Q pump cavity from a pump source. On the right side of the membrane, vacuum fluctuations of the double signal and idler cavity with a doublet of high-Q microwave resonances will be exponentially amplified above the threshold for the dynamical Casimir effect, so that signal and idler gravitational waves can be generated out of these fluctuations, in addition to the usual electromagnetic waves. Thus an analog of a laser for generating gravitational waves could be constructed. We will test a working parametric oscillator for gravitational-wave output by feeding it back into the oscillator using a VSWR method, in which the electromagnetic output is blocked by a normal metallic filter.