New gravitational wave detector identifies mysterious high-frequency signals: Study

Outer space has been a subject of both mysteries and wonder that has baffled many scientists over the years. A similar mystery has reportedly risen again as researchers have now detected mysterious signals, origins of which are unknown. According to a report by Science Alert, this discovery has been done by a tabletop gravitational wave detector that is operational for just over 150 days. 

What is the tabletop detector?

According to media reports, the detector used for tracking high-frequency gravitational waves was designed by Tobar and his colleague Maxim Goryachev in 2014. The detector, which has one convex side, is a disk of quartz crystal called the bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator. Its working requires the gravitational waves to generate standing sound waves in the disk, which are then trapped as phonons by the convex side. 

The disk is kept cool cryogenically at all times to reduce thermal noise. There also are conducting plates that are placed at small distances from the crystal that picks up minute piezoelectric signals. Since this signal is extremely tiny, a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID, is employed to amplify the same. All this happens while the detector is placed in a radiation-shielded vacuum chamber to prevent as much outside interference as possible. 

Detection of high-frequency gravitational waves

Although it was unclear what these mysterious signals were, media reports suggested them to be high-frequency gravitational waves. The ringing of the quartz disk presented a few possibilities about the source of the signal which includes cosmic rays, disturbances caused by topological defects in dark matter, or massive amounts of dark matter particles that could have birthed them. Owing to the confusion over the signal’s origin, the researchers will reportedly add a second crystal, with its own SQUID and readout, to narrow down what created the signals. 

Physicist Michael Tobar from the University of Western Australia was reported saying that this is one of the only two currently active experiments in the world searching for gravitational waves at these frequencies. He added that the researchers will expand their reach to even higher frequencies. According to media sources, such signals have never been recorded before and it will be too soon to arrive at conclusions about their origin. 

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