Dark matter has contacted the Physics of the University of
Western Australia and the Advanced Center for Dark Matter
Physics (CDM) have built a gravitational wave detector that
recorded two previously unobserved rare events, possibly
associated with dark matter. This is reported in the journal
Physical Review Letters. The heart of the detector is a bulk
acoustic wave (BAW) quartz resonator. This device is based
on a quartz crystal disk that can vibrate at high frequencies
due to acoustic waves passing through it. These waves create
an electrical charge that can be detected by placing conductive
plates on the outer surfaces of a quartz disc. The BAW has
been connected to a superconducting quantum interference
device known as SQUID, which acts as an extremely sensitive
amplifier for the low voltage signal. The entire unit was placed
inside several radiation shields to protect it from stray
electromagnetic fields and cooled to a low temperature so that
low-energy acoustic vibrations of the quartz crystal could be
recorded.
During the first 153 days of the detector's operation, candidate
events were recorded, indicating high-frequency gravitational
waves, which could be created by a primordial black hole or a
cloud of dark matter particles. However, an alternative
explanation could be the presence of charged particles,
accumulating mechanical stress, a meteorite event, or an internal
atomic process. According to scientists, the development of this
technology could potentially provide the first detection of
gravitational waves at high frequencies.
