Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, February 6, 2012 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
Babak Saif
"Atom Interferometry and Gravity Wave Detection"
ABSTRACT -- Space based gravity wave detection by means of laser-based Atom Interferometry has the potential to enable exciting science spanning the gamut from white dwarf binaries to in-spiralling black holes, and cosmologically significant phenomena like inflation. To exploit this innovative detection concept, Goddard has teamed with Stanford and Princeton Universities in the formulation of a proposal to increase the technology readiness level of this innovative approach to gravity wave research. Groups of neutral atoms, confined with laser cooling, would serve as inertial test masses. Laser interferometry would monitor the distance between the two groups, looking for evidence of changes caused by gravity waves. Two mission designs are being studied. One would use a single spacecraft with two 500 m deployable booms. The other would use two spacecraft, separated by 500 km. The proposed missions go by the name of Interferomter in Space for Detecting Gravity Wave Radiation using Lasers (InSpRL).
SPEAKER -- Dr. Babak N. Saif received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and the M.S. and PhD. Degrees in Physics from the Catholic University of America, and also M.S. and PhD. Degrees in Optics from the University of Arizona. His PhD specialties were in the electrical properties of DNA molecules and speckle interferometry. He has served as the Optical Branch Head when employed by Swales Aerospace. Subsequently, he was a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute and is presently an optical engineer with Godard's Optics Branch supporting the JWST project.