Terrestrial detector for low-frequency gravitational waves based on full tensor measurement

Two serious obstacles in constructing terrestrial gravitational wave (GW) detectors that can resolve low-frequency signals (≤ 10 Hz) are seismic and Newtonian noises. Here we describe a new detector concept by adopting new measurement techniques and configurations to overcome the present low-frequency barrier due to these noises. Six magnetically levitated superconducting test masses, widely separated along three orthogonal axes, each with three degrees of freedom, constitute a tensor GW detector. The tensor outputs could be combined to better reject the Newtonian noise. Unlike current two-dimensional detectors, a single tensor detector is able to determine the polarization of GWs and the direction to sources on its own. (paper)