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Can gravitational waves be created on very small region of vacuum with quadruple movement of atom or subatomic particles?

nihaljp
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2 Answers2

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Yes, even tiny objects produce gravitational waves as they move. It's just that their gravitational waves will be way too tiny to measure.

Just consider that the recent gravitational wave detection was caused by 2 black holes weighing 36 and 29 times the mass of our sun. Even those enormous black holes only caused a tiny change a thousand times smaller than the width of a proton. Surely the movement of an atom will cause a far smaller gravitational wave. Too small to detect.

RichS
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    For added scale, the GW150914 event resulted in ~3 solar masses being converted into pure energy, with a peak power output of 3.6x10^49 watts. The effect as measured by LIGO (admittedly at a distance of 1.3 billion light years) was a thousandth the width of a proton... – DevSolar Apr 18 '16 at 09:19
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    That 1.3 billion lightyears is about 10^25 meters. With a decay in 1/r^2 (probably not the case), that is the same order of magnitude as the power output. Could you provide an estimation of the required power to generate a wave that can be measured? – TonioElGringo Apr 18 '16 at 09:39
  • @TonioElGringo: No I cannot. On this site I am well out of my depth, a lowly spectator who thought he could quote some helpful numbers found elsewhere. ;-) – DevSolar Apr 18 '16 at 12:41
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A explain this practically, you need to place a spherical mass of 0.5 kilometre diameter at the distance of 10 metre from LIGO sensor to detect its gravitational wave which may read the maximum of 1mm in the reading.

Simple answer would be Yes you can create a gravitational wave with quadruple movement of atom or subatomic particles Theoretically. But our technology is not upto the mark to prove it Practically