AAWSAP DIRD, High-Frequency Gravitational Wave Communications, April 2010

This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed.

This DIRD examines whether high-frequency gravitational waves could serve as a communications medium while avoiding the attenuation that limits radio-frequency systems. The report surveys proposed transmitter and detector concepts, argues that gravitational-wave communications could support secure point-to-point links, timing standards, and interplanetary navigation, and gives particular attention to laboratory generator concepts and the Li-Baker detector as possible building blocks for such a system. The document makes clear, however, that the entire concept depends on capabilities that had not been demonstrated in practice, including laboratory-scale generation and reliable detection of usable high-frequency gravitational-wave signals. It is an exploratory systems-oriented review built around a future communications concept.