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arXiv · 2501.11723

Challenges and Opportunities of Gravitational Wave Searches above 10 kHz

Nancy Aggarwal·Odylio D. Aguiar·Diego Blas·Andreas Bauswein·Giancarlo Cella·Sebastian Clesse·Adrian Michael Cruise·Valerie Domcke·Sebastian Ellis·Daniel G. Figueroa·Gabriele Franciolini·Camilo Garcia-Cely·Andrew Geraci·Maxim Goryachev·Hartmut Grote·Mark Hindmarsh·Asuka Ito·Joachim Kopp·Sung Mook Lee·Killian Martineau·Jamie McDonald·Francesco Muia·Nikhil Mukund·David Ottaway·Marco Peloso·Krisztian Peters·Fernando Quevedo·Angelo Ricciardone·Andreas Ringwald·Jessica Steinlechner·Sebastian Steinlechner·Sichun Sun·Carlos Tamarit·Michael E. Tobar·Francisco Torrenti·Caner Ünal·Graham White
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Abstract

The first direct measurement of gravitational waves by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations has opened up new avenues to explore our Universe. This white paper outlines the challenges and gains expected in gravitational-wave searches at frequencies above the LIGO/Virgo band. The scarcity of possible astrophysical sources in most of this frequency range provides a unique opportunity to discover physics beyond the Standard Model operating both in the early and late Universe, and we highlight some of the most promising of these sources. We review several detector concepts that have been proposed to take up this challenge, and compare their expected sensitivity with the signal strength predicted in various models. This report is the summary of a series of workshops on the topic of high-frequency gravitational wave detection, held in 2019 (ICTP, Trieste, Italy), 2021 (online) and 2023 (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland).

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Nancy Aggarwal, Odylio D. Aguiar, Diego Blas, Andreas Bauswein, Giancarlo Cella, Sebastian Clesse, Adrian Michael Cruise, Valerie Domcke, Sebastian Ellis, Daniel G. Figueroa, Gabriele Franciolini, Camilo Garcia-Cely, Andrew Geraci, Maxim Goryachev, Hartmut Grote, Mark Hindmarsh, Asuka Ito, Joachim Kopp, Sung Mook Lee, Killian Martineau, Jamie McDonald, Francesco Muia, Nikhil Mukund, David Ottaway, Marco Peloso, Krisztian Peters, Fernando Quevedo, Angelo Ricciardone, Andreas Ringwald, Jessica Steinlechner, Sebastian Steinlechner, Sichun Sun, Carlos Tamarit, Michael E. Tobar, Francisco Torrenti, Caner Ünal, Graham White. 2026-02-03. Challenges and Opportunities of Gravitational Wave Searches above 10 kHz. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41114-025-00060-5

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