Fundamental limits of quantum sensors for gravitational wave detection

Abstract Recent advances in quantum sensing—optical clocks at 5.5 × 10 − 19 systematic uncertainty, frequency-dependent squeezing below the standard quantum limit, quantum magnetometers approaching fundamental sensitivity limits—raise a natural question: can these technologies detect gravitational waves directly, or enhance existing detectors beyond current capabilities? We show that the answer is primarily determined by the coupling mechanism between the gravitational wave and the sensor. Starting from the tidal Hamiltonian in Fermi normal coordinates, we identify three physically distinct mechanisms by which a gravitational wave couples directly to a quantum system, and derive their transducer gains within linearized general relativity and non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Internal atomic coupling (tidal distortion of electronic wavefunctions) yields a transducer gain G A = 2.4 × 10 − 20 , with vanishing first-order energy shifts for all J = 0 clock states—a ∼ 10 35 deficit relative to laser interferometry that exceeds any projected quantum enhancement. Center-of-mass coupling (Doppler shifts from geodesic motion) reaches strain sensitivities of ∼ 10 − 18 , still 10 4 above LISA requirements. Light propagation coupling (phase accumulation over macroscopic baselines) provides the enormous transducer gain that makes laser interferometry—and atom interferometry—viable. For detectors exploiting this third mechanism, we quantify how much improvement quantum sensors can provide through the detector’s noise architecture: LISA’s noise budget is predominantly classical, limiting combined quantum enhancement to E ≈ 1.04 , while ground-based detectors in the shot-noise-dominated regime achieve E = 1.6 – 2.1 . Atom interferometers exploit the same light-propagation mechanism to target the 0.01–10 Hz band between the LISA and LIGO ranges.