Extending Ground-Based Gravitational-Wave Sensitivity to 5 Hz.Phys Rev Lett 2026 Jul 17; 137(3):031401.PR
Extending the sensitivity of terrestrial gravitational-wave detectors below 20 Hz is a long-standing challenge, limited by ground motion and inertial sensing noise. In this Letter, we demonstrate ultra-high-vacuum compatible inertial isolation and position sensing technologies that achieve active platform stabilization down to 10 mHz. Our laser position sensors reach a sub-pm/sqrt[Hz] sensitivity above 10 mHz, independent of the input light polarization, representing a 100-fold improvement over the current LIGO position sensors. In addition, our inertial sensors provide at least a factor of 5 improvement in low-frequency sensitivity compared to state-of-the-art commercial seismometers. We integrate these technologies into a LIGO-like interferometer model and predict a low-frequency sensitivity improvement of up to an order of magnitude at 10 Hz, with enhanced linearity and calibration stability. This extension increases the detection horizon for intermediate-mass black hole binaries of mass 10^{3}M_{⊙} by a factor of 3 and increases the SNR for all lower mass binaries. Our results provide the first experimental demonstration of a practical pathway to sub-10 Hz operation of terrestrial gravitational-wave detectors and establish key technologies for next-generation observatories such as Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope.
