High Energy Physics Seminar

Gravitational waves (GWs) with frequencies above 10 kHz are a clean signature of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. They can contain information about high energies that we cannot access directly in the laboratory. To study the Universe at 10^15 GeV, it might seem easier to detect a background of GWs oscillating at 100 MHz than building a particle collider at the same energies. In the talk I will describe a simple toy model that captures the ultimate sensitivity of existing GW detectors at high frequencies and shows that the two tasks are of comparable difficulty. However, not all frequencies above 10 kHz are forever out of reach and in the talk I will comment on the classical and quantum resources needed to probe them.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact theoryinfo@caltech.edu for Zoom link.