basicmetrology

Bryan Kibble

Is the Universe Shaking?

sually whenever we want to measure something, be

it the red shift of an immensely distant galaxy or the
diameter of a proton, if we extend the abilities of our
senses with appropriate instruments, we can see it. And if we
can see it, we stand a good chance of being
able to measure it. But if the very existence
of the phenomenon is in question, then we
must first look for it.
Before Maxwell, scientists were puzzled
how an electromagnetic wave could propagate in space when there was nothing for it
to propagate in. Now, we have become accustomed to the idea that both electric and
magnetic fields can be created in otherwise
empty space and that a varying electric field
can create a varying magnetic field, which
in turn creates a varying electric field, and
so these fields can propagate. But a hundred years ago Einstein
went further and asked us to understand that the very structure of space itself can be distorted. This distortion can also
propagate and carry energy to displace masses encountered
along the way. Because of frequent repetition and experimental observation, we have come to accept that mass distorts
the space around it, but there are no masses in the space the
gravitational wave is passing through. So a hypothetical cosmological metrologist could be asked to measure this property
of space even though there is nothing there to measure, until that is, the wave encounters test masses. Mind-bending!
Gravitational waves have still not been directly observed, although there is indirect evidence for them from the energy lost
through their radiation from an orbiting pair of neutron stars,
one of which is also a pulsar.
But circumstantial evidence, no matter how strong, is
not totally convincing for the human mind. There is always
the possibility that we are the victims of a coincidence in
that the energy loss could have some other cause, which
just happens to be the right amount. It is therefore gratifying that several efforts are under way to detect directly the
effect of a gravitational wave on separated test masses as it
passes through our solar system. But these efforts involve
pushing the limits of present observational technology to an
incredible extent.

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This is because even the cataclysmic energy released by the

collision of two stars not too far away in the universe is so diluted by spreading out over the vast distance the event would
be from us, and that the wavelength is so great compared with
the dimensions of an earth-bound detector that the energy intersecting our detector is too small to register. Until now, that
is.
The five detectors scattered over the earths surface are interferometers whose principle is the same as the rotatable
apparatus constructed by Michelson to show that the velocity
of light is the same in all horizontal directions, thus verifying a
key prediction of the special theory of relativity. The only difference is one of size. Whereas Michelsons was of table-top
dimensions, earth-bound gravitational wave detectors have
arms kilometres long, and because fluctuations in air density
would cause far too much noise, the light paths have to be in
evacuated tubes. The mirrors at the end of the arms are so flat
and reflect so well that laser beams can be sent around the interferometer four hundred times without too much loss of
intensity, thus increasing the detection sensitivity by this factor
when the beams are recombined to interfere. All this is needed
to have any hope of detecting stretching of the arms by less
than 10-18 metres as a gravitational wave goes by. The massive
mirrors must also be suspended on spring systems so that they
are isolated to this extent from ground vibrations in the audiofrequency range. To put this tiny distance in perspective, it is a
thousand times less than the diameter of a proton and will only
produce a shift in the interferometer of 10-9 of an optical fringe.
To experimentalists like me who have used interferometers as
a length-measuring tool, 10-5 of a fringe seems very much like
pushing your luck, and we must admire the courage of these
would-be detectorists not to have been deterred from even beginning their work.
Even more ambitious plans are being implemented, to
send the apparatus into space with the interferometer parts
mounted in three satellites 106 kilometers apart. That solves
the vacuum and ground vibration problems nicely, and these
dimensions match the wavelength expected. The European
Space Agency has just taken the first step by sending up a preliminary satellite to test whether a test mass within a satellite
can be kept still enough to monitor its distance from a similar
mass in another satellite 106 kilometers distant.

IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine

1094-6969/16/$25.002016IEEE

April 2016

All in all, it is not too much to expect some news of the universe shaking from mighty collisions within it sometime this
year, or shortly after. In some ways a null result would be even
more interesting, being mind-shaking for relativistic theoreticians, but Einstein couldnt have been wrong, could he?
The inevitable question of why should we devote considerable economic resources to this work deserves a convincing
answer. Unlike Faradays new-born child, the knowledge
gained is unlikely to be of practical benefit to the human race,
maybe ever. But we are more than practical animals. Those
privileged few of us who have sufficient financial resources

not to have to spend all our energy on merely having enough

food and housing to exist can afford the time for our insatiable
curiosity about our home, the universe. That proportion needs
to increase, and then maybe less effort will be expended trying
to exhaust the earth of its resources or to kill one another in the
name of some supposed religious edict and more on realising
that the earth is very finite in the vast universe, and we could
very easily exploit it to our extinction.
You may contact Dr. Kibble at b_kibble@sky.com. His bio is
available at http://ieee-ims.org/contacts/bryan-peter-kibble.

Footnote

ear Readers,
No sooner than the ink for this column was dry
on the page and sent off, the news broke about
the actual claimed observation of gravitational waves. So
it seems that we must contemplate as correct the model
that the abstract space-time coordinates of the universe

April 2016

are capable of distortion, but relative to what? Apparently,

in physics, we are not entitled to ask how things work;
they are what they are and we just do our best to model
them.
Bryan

IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 21