English

Geometric noise spectrum in interferometers

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-05-22 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We study the power spectral density of time delay fluctuations in an interferometer as a potential low-energy quantum gravitational observable. We derive a general expression for the spectrum in terms of the Wightman function of linear metric perturbations, which we then apply to a variety of cases. We analyze the intrinsic graviton fluctuations in the vacuum, thermal, and squeezed states, as well as the fluctuations induced by the vacuum stress-energy of a massless scalar field. We find that the resulting spectra are free of ultraviolet divergences and that, while thermal and squeezed states provide a natural amplification mechanism, the spectra remain suppressed by the Planck scale.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.17849,
  title  = {Geometric noise spectrum in interferometers},
  author = {Laurent Freidel and Robin Oberfrank},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.17849},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

63 pages, 3 figures. v2: typos corrected + references updated + change of notation for section 4.1.II

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:19:12.108Z