Axion

Physics

Dark matter

Microwave cavity

Cosmic microwave background

Laser

Musical

Optics

Visual arts

Gravitational wave

Resonant cavity

Theoretical physics

Microwave

Astrophysics

Quantum mechanics

Formalism (music)

Anisotropy

Computational physics

Wavelength

Detector

OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

We give a detailed treatment of electromagnetic signals generated by gravitational waves (GWs) in resonant cavity experiments. Our investigation corrects and builds upon previous studies by carefully accounting for the gauge dependence of relevant quantities. We work in a preferred frame for the laboratory, the proper detector frame, and show how to resum short-wavelength effects to provide analytic results that are exact for GWs of arbitrary wavelength. This formalism allows us to firmly establish that, contrary to previous claims, cavity experiments designed for the detection of axion dark matter only need to reanalyze existing data to search for high-frequency GWs with strains as small as $h\sim 10^{-22}-10^{-21}$. We also argue that directional detection is possible in principle using readout of multiple cavity modes. Further improvements in sensitivity are expected with cutting-edge advances in superconducting cavity technology.

Detecting high-frequency gravitational waves with microwave cavities