Gravity-wave interferometers as quantum-gravity detectors

Gravity-wave interferometers as probes of a low-energy effective quantum gravity

The interferometry-based experimental tests of quantum properties of space-time which the author sketched out in a recent short paper are here discussed in a self-contained fashion. In addition to providing detailed derivations of the results already announced in the previous paper, some new results are also derived; in particular, the analysis is extended to a larger class of scenarios for spa...

Gravity-wave detectors as probes of extra dimensions

If string theory is correct, then our observable Universe may be a 3-dimensional “brane” embedded in a higher-dimensional spacetime. This theoretical scenario should be tested via the state-of-the-art in gravitational experiments – the current and upcoming gravity-wave detectors. Indeed, the existence of extra dimensions leads to oscillations that leave a spectroscopic signature in the gravity-...

Two Gravity-Wave Detectors: A Comparison

Two Gravity-Wave Detectors: A Comparison

*Work supported by the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission under contract with Union Carbide Corporation. )Present address: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. J. Rainwater, Phys. Bev. 79, 432 (1950). J. M. Blatt and V. F. Weisskopf, Theoretical Nuclear Physics (Wiley, New York, 1952). K. Kumar, Phys. Rev. C 1, 369 (1970). A. Bohr, Kgl. Dan. Vidensk. S...

Measuring the Foaminess of Space-Time with Gravity-Wave Interferometers

By analyzing a gedanken experiment designed to measure the distance l between two spatially separated points, we find that this distance cannot be measured with uncertainty less than (ll P ) 1/3, considerably larger than the Planck scale lP (or the string scale in string theories), the conventionalwisdom uncertainty in distance measurements. This limitation to space-time measurements is interpr...