XFEL: Taylor Swift rocked European XFEL
Taylor Swift rocked European XFEL
The vibrations were recorded by the European XFEL and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld, which is around two kilometres from Hamburg's Volksparkstadion.
The song ‘Shake it off’ created the biggest buzz around 9:30 pm.
WAVE is a seismic and geo-acoustic measuring network. It comprises a total of 19 kilometres of glass fibre with 19,000 sensors and extends from Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld to the European XFEL in Schenefeld. WAVE makes it possible to record ground movements at a previously unattained density over long distances. In future, WAVE will be used to record changes in the subsurface, such as the groundwater content or subsurface temperature. Experiments to measure gravitational waves are also planned as part of the ‘Quantum Universe’ Cluster of Excellence at the University of Hamburg.
Sources:
Press release from the University of Hamburg (in German)
https://www.uni-hamburg.de/newsroom/presse/2024/pm36.html
‘WAVE’ website with results and images:
http://wave-hamburg.eu/
Addendum:
Here is an audio file of the vibrations from the Taylor Swift concert on 23 July–recorded a few metres underground about four kilometres away from the Volksparkstadion in the tunnel of the European XFEL. The recording was accelerated by a factor of 360 and reduced to one minute of playing time. The vibrations, which in reality had a frequency of 2 to 3 Hertz, are now in the range of 700 to 1000 Hertz and are therefore audible.
People with good hearing–or our measuring devices–realise that each song produced a different infrasound pattern. Harmonics and subharmonics were also registered, which means that the tones in the audio file do not sound like pure sine tones, but more like a flute. The background noise in the first few seconds of the recording was the opening act at the beginning of Taylor Swift's concert.
