Gravity waves may soon become visible using a new device proposed by researchers, possibly confirming a previously unobserved prediction made by Albert Einstein. If built, this new eye-on-the-sky could open up a whole new way of viewing the Universe for astronomers, revealing features from the most distant reaches of the Cosmos. Due to the finite speed of light, this also means that the observations made would reveal some of the earliest features of the visible Universe.
Albert Einstein first developed the mathematics that predicted gravity waves as part of his general theory of relativity in 1915. The legendary physicist described space-time as being like a thin sheet of rubber, which is distorted by any objects affecting it. As objects move, they would create waves in the fabric of space-time just as a person wading in water will create ripples as she moves. Directly detecting gravity waves has been an elusive task for physicists for nearly 100 years.
Andrew Geraci, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Nevada, Reno, said "Gravitational waves represent one of the missing pieces of Einstein's theory of general relativity,"
The effects of gravitational waves were first observed indirectly in 1993. This was done through the measurements of the orbital periods of a pair of neutron stars in a binary system. The astronomers who made the measurements won the Noble Prize for their feat.
This new tool for viewing the Universe would consist of a tiny detector, cooled by lasers that would float in an optical cavity, allowing the device to operate with very little friction. An optical cavity is made up of a series of mirrors. Like other earlier detectors, the distances between two small disks or spheres within the machine would change as gravity waves passed, and these would be recorded by the device.
Geraci said, "[T]he invention of a gravitational wave detector, which lets us 'see' the universe through gravity waves, is analogous to the invention of the telescope, which let us see the universe using light."
The proposal for the new detector was published in Physical Review Letters, a highly-respected physics journal produced by the American Physical Society.
