Title: Searching for Planck-Scale Spacetime Fluctuations with the Fermilab Holometer

Abstract:

In the last decade, the kilometer-scale gravitational wave interferometers -- LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 -- have achieved their design goals of 10^{-19} m/rtHz displacement sensitivity. In 2008, a new form of 2-dimensional, Planck scale position indeterminacy, called holographic noise, was proposed that could be a limiting noise source for a next generation interferometer. This conjecture predicts a typical noise of \sqrt(c t_pl L) -- within a factor of 2 of the current sensitivity of the gravitational wave detectors. The holographic noise would definitely limit the next generation of gravitational wave detectors. In this talk, I'll describe the precision interferometry used by LIGO to measure sub-attometer displacements; give a hand waving overview of the conjectured holographic noise; and describe the Fermilab Holometer, a purpose-built experiment to detect holographic noise.