Geophysical studies with laser-beam detectors of gravitational wavesстатья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
Информация о цитировании статьи получена из
Web of Science,
Scopus
Статья опубликована в журнале из списка Web of Science и/или Scopus
Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 18 июля 2013 г.
Аннотация:The existing high technology laser-beam detectors of gravitational waves
may find very useful applications in an unexpected area—geophysics. To
make possible the detection of weak gravitational waves in the region of
high frequencies of astrophysical interest, ∼30–103 Hz, control systems of
laser interferometers must permanently monitor, record and compensate much
larger external interventions that take place in the region of low frequencies
of geophysical interest, ∼10−5–3 × 10−3 Hz. Such phenomena as tidal
perturbations of land and gravity, normal mode oscillations of the Earth,
oscillations of the inner core of the Earth, etc will inevitably affect the
performance of the interferometers and, therefore, information about them
will be stored in the data of control systems. We specifically identify the
low-frequency information contained in distances between the interferometer
mirrors (deformation of the Earth) and angles between themirrors’ suspensions
(deviations of local gravity vectors and plumb lines). We show that access
to angular information may require some modest amendments to the optical
scheme of the interferometers, and we suggest ways of doing that. The detailed
evaluation of environmental and instrumental noises indicates that they will
not prevent, even if only marginally, the detection of interesting geophysical
phenomena. Gravitational-wave instruments seem to be capable of reaching, as
a by-product of their continuous operation, very ambitious geophysical goals,
such as observation of the Earth’s inner core oscillations.