PRINCIPLES OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES DETECTION THROUGH ATOM INTERFEROMETRY

The output of a simple Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer (with light field beam splitters) is studied in order to obtain sensitivity curves for GW signals in the paraxial approximation by using the ABCD matrices techniques and first order perturbation theory for mirroratom interaction; order of magnitude of relevant physical parameters for a realistic GW detector through atom interferometry is deduced, both for single- and coupled-interferometers configurations. Finally a synthetic overview of ongoing activities of the Florence-Urbino group in this field is presented.