Rumours swell over new kind of gravitational-wave sighting

Nature ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Castelvecchi
Keyword(s):  
2016 ◽  
pp. 4422-4429
Author(s):  
C. Y. Lo

It is exciting that the gravitational wave has been confirmed, according to the announcement of LIGO. This would be the time to fix the Einstein equation for the gravitational wave and the nonexistence of the dynamic solution. As a first step, theorists should improve their pure mathematics on non-linear mathematics and related physical considerations beyond Einstein. Then, it is time to rectify the Einstein equation that has no gravitational wave solution which Einstein has recognized, and no dynamic solution that Einstein failed to see. A problem is that physicists in LIGO did not know their shortcomings. Also, in view of the far distance of the sources, it is very questionable that the physicists can determine they are from black holes. Moreover, since the repulsive gravitation can also generate a gravitational wave, the problem of gravitational wave is actually far more complicated than we have known. A useful feature of the gravitational wave based on repulsive gravitation is that it can be easily generated on earth. Thus this can be a new tool for communication because it can penetrate any medium.


The Les Houches Summer School 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a wide range of topics. Modern quantum optomechanics was born in the late 70s in the framework of gravitational wave interferometry, initially focusing on the quantum limits of displacement measurements. Carlton Caves, Vladimir Braginsky, and others realized that the sensitivity of the anticipated large-scale gravitational-wave interferometers (GWI) was fundamentally limited by the quantum fluctuations of the measurement laser beam. After tremendous experimental progress, the sensitivity of the upcoming next generation of GWI will effectively be limited by quantum noise. In this way, quantum-optomechanical effects will directly affect the operation of what is arguably the world’s most impressive precision experiment. However, optomechanics has also gained a life of its own with a focus on the quantum aspects of moving mirrors. Laser light can be used to cool mechanical resonators well below the temperature of their environment. After proof-of-principle demonstrations of this cooling in 2006, a number of systems were used as the field gradually merged with its condensed matter cousin (nanomechanical systems) to try to reach the mechanical quantum ground state, eventually demonstrated in 2010 by pure cryogenic techniques and a year later by a combination of cryogenic and radiation-pressure cooling. The book covers all aspects—historical, theoretical, experimental—of the field, with its applications to quantum measurement, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. Essential reading for any researcher in the field.


2016 ◽  
Vol 117 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Maselli ◽  
Stefania Marassi ◽  
Valeria Ferrari ◽  
Kostas Kokkotas ◽  
Raffaella Schneider

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