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QuGrav: Bringing gravitational waves to light with qumodes

Dmitri E. Kharzeev

Azadeh Maleknejad*

Saba Shalamberidze

  • Center for Nuclear Theory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, New York 11794-3800, USA and Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate, Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, Stony Brook 11973-5000, New York, USA

  • Department of Physics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom

  • Center for Nuclear Theory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook 11794-3800, New York, USA

  • *Contact author: azadeh.maleknejad@swansea.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013140 – Published 9 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nbzp-1yn7

Abstract

We propose using qumodes, quantum bosonic modes, for detecting high-frequency gravitational waves via the inverse Gertsenshtein effect, where a gravitational wave resonantly converts into a single photon in a magnetized cavity. For an occupation number n of the photon field in a qumode, the conversion probability is enhanced by a factor of n+1 due to Bose-Einstein statistics. Unlocking this increased sensitivity entails the ability to continuously prepare the qumode and perform nondemolition measurement on the qumode-qubit system within the qumode coherence time. Our results indicate that, at microwave frequencies and with existing technology, the proposed setup can attain sensitivities within 1.7 orders of magnitude of the cosmological bound. With anticipated near-future improvements, it has the potential to surpass this limit and pave the way for the first exploration of high-frequency cosmological gravitational wave backgrounds. At optical frequencies, it can enhance the sensitivity of current detectors by one order of magnitude. That further enhances their potential in reaching the single-graviton level.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013140– Published 9 February, 2026
  • Received 9 July 2025
  • Accepted 17 December 2025
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