PROPOSED ROOM-TEMPERATURE DETECTOR FOR GRAVITATIONAL-RADIATION FROM GALACTIC SOURCES

A room-temperature resonant-bar gravitational-radiation detector instrumented with a tunneling transducer may be sensitive enough to register supernovae events from the Galaxy. The key element in the new approach is the tunneling transducer, which is a quantum-limited electromechanical amplifier even at room temperature. We propose a design for a 2000-kg room-temperature, three-mode detector with a bandwidth of 200 Hz and a noise temperature of 100 mK, which corresponds to an rms strain sensitivity of h4×10-18 © 1990 The American Physical Society.