On the analog signals of the Euler’s disk and merging black holes
Authors: Francesco Conidi, Andrea De Luca, Alessandra Mercuri, Domenico Davide Meringolo
Abstract
This video contains the results presented by the students in the final project for the course “Scientific Data Acquisition and Processing”, held for the master's degree in Physics at the University of Calabria. The results shown in the video are devoted to the study of the dynamic of the spinning Euler’s disk, by focusing on the analysis of the signal generated and acquired during the disk motion in terms of acoustic waves and acceleration of the supporting surface. Measurements have been performed with the Arduino sensors and with the phone accelerometer. Results have shown that the latter are less affected by numerical noise and thus more clearly show the typical characteristics of the disk’s motion, which are the increase in frequency and amplitude during its time evolution, and the singular behavior at the end. These features are common to the gravitational waves emitted during the merging of massive celestial bodies such as neutron stars and black holes, which have been recently detected thanks to the LIGO and VIRGO scientific collaborations. Therefore, a comparison of these two signals is presented, showing these interesting common features.