Correlated 0.01–40 Hz seismic and Newtonian noise and its impact on future gravitational-wave detectors

We report correlations in underground seismic measurements with horizontal separations of several hundreds of meters to a few kilometers in the frequency range 0.01 to 40 Hz. These seismic correlations could threaten science goals of planned interferometric gravitational-wave detectors such as the Einstein Telescope as well as atom interferometers such as MIGA and ELGAR. We use seismic measurements from four different sites, i.e., the former Homestake mine (USA) as well as two candidate sites for the Einstein Telescope, Sos Enattos (IT), and Euregio Maas-Rhein (NL-BE-DE) and the site housing the MIGA detector, LSBB (FR). At all sites, we observe significant coherence for at least 50% of the time in the majority of the frequency region of interest. Based on the observed correlations in the seismic fields, we predict levels of correlated Newtonian noise from body waves. We project the effect of correlated Newtonian noise from body waves on the capabilities of the triangular design of the Einstein Telescope to observe an isotropic gravitational-wave background (GWB) and find that, even in case of the most quiet site, its sensitivity will be affected up to ∼20 Hz. The resolvable amplitude of a GWB signal with a negatively sloped power-law behavior would be reduced by several orders of magnitude. However, the resolvability of a power-law signal with a slope of e.g., α=0 (α=2/3) would be more moderately affected by a factor ∼6-9 (∼3-4) in case of a low-noise environment. Furthermore, we bolster confidence in our results by showing that transient noise features have a limited impact on the presented results.