New Method Proposed for Detecting Gravitational Waves from Ends of Universe
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130516161739.htm

A new window into the nature of the universe may be possible with a device proposed by scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno and Stanford University that would detect elusive gravity waves from the other end of the cosmos. Their paper describing the device and process was published in the physics journal Physical Review Letters.

more…

> “Our detector is complementary to existing gravitational wave detectors, in that it is more sensitive to sources in a higher frequency band, so we could see signals that other detectors might potentially miss.”

That’s true. Normal gravitational wave detectors look for frequencies in the order of few Hertz. A 10 Hz signal with increasing frequency is a typical good signal from, for example, a black hole swallowing a neutron star. Most gravitational waves from the universe have lower frequencies and lower strength than that.

This detector is set up to measure much higher frequencies. Any such signals from the cosmos would be very brief but perhaps of very high strength. The collision of two stellar-mass black holes is one possible source of such waves.

> in the frequency range of 50 to 300 kilohertz.

Yes, that frequency range. Think how fast two stellar-mass objects would have to be moving to orbit one another in 0.00002 seconds or less. The fastest rotation so far discovered is 70 times as slow at 0.0014 seconds; that’s the millisecond pulsar PSR J1748-2446ad.