Simulations of gravitoelastic correlations for the Sardinian candidate site of the Einstein Telescope

Gravity fluctuations produced by ambient seismic fields are predicted to limit the sensitivity of the next-generation, gravitational-wave detector Einstein Telescope at frequencies below 20 Hz. The detector will be hosted in an underground infrastructure to reduce seismic disturbances and associated gravity fluctuations. Additional mitigation might be required by monitoring the seismic field and using the data to estimate the associated gravity fluctuations and to subtract the estimate from the detector data, a technique called coherent noise cancellation. In this paper, we present a calculation of correlations between surface displacement of a seismic field and the associated gravitational fluctuations using the spectral-element SPECFEM3D Cartesian software. The model takes into account the local topography at a candidate site of the Einstein Telescope at Sardinia. This paper is a first demonstration of SPECFEM3D’s capabilities to provide estimates of gravitoelastic correlations, which are required for an optimized deployment of seismometers for gravity-noise cancellation.