Orbital atomic sensor for gravitational waves

Precision gravitational wave measurement transforms research beyond general relativity and cosmology. The signals detected can reveal the equation of state in neutron stars and new physics beyond the standard model. Advances are made by applying quantum enhanced interferometry into the LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA detectors. Here, we introduce a sensor using a squeezed p-orbital ultracold atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice to project the gravitational wave signal received by a standard LIGO into a phase-sensitive entangled state. Simulation data show the detection sensitivity improves over the LIGO quantum noise by approximately one order of magnitude in key frequency ranges and 10³ in detection volume, significantly advancing the potential of using gravitational waves to detect dark matter and black holes.