Measurement and theory of gravitational coupling between resonating beams

Abstract

Recent spectacular results of gravitational waves obtained by the LIGO system, with frequencies in the 100 Hz regime, make corresponding laboratory experiments with full control over cause and effect of great importance. Dynamic measurements of gravitation in the laboratory have to date been scarce, due to difficulties in assessing non-gravitational crosstalk and the intrinsically weak nature of gravitational forces. In fact, fully controlled quantitative experiments have so far been limited to frequencies in the mHz regime. New experiments in gravity might also yield new physics, thereby opening avenues towards a theory that explains all of physics within one coherent framework. Here we introduce a new, fully-characterized experiment at three orders of magnitude higher frequencies. It allows experimenters to quantitatively determine the dynamic gravitational interaction between two parallel beams vibrating at 42 Hz in bending motion. The large amplitude vibration of the transmitter beam produces gravitationally-induced motion with amplitudes up to 1E-11 m of the resonant detector beam. The reliable measurement with sub-pm displacement resolution is made possible by a set-up which combines acoustical, mechanical and electrical isolation, a temperature-stable environment, heterodyne laser interferometry and lock-in detection. The interaction is quantitatively modelled based on Newton's theory. Our initial results agree with the theory to within about three percent in amplitude. Based on a power balance analysis, we determined the near-field gravitational energy flow from the transmitter to the detector to be 2.5 E-20 J/s, and to decay with distance as d-4. We expect our experiment to make significant progress in directions where current experimental evidence for dynamic gravitation is limited, such as the dynamic determination of G, inverse-square law, and gravitational shielding.