Paper suggests NASA Warping space time experiments need better detectors by 1 million times or to alter the design to increase the possible effect

Arvix paper contends the spacetime distortions resulting from the experimentally obtainable electric field of a parallel plate capacitor configuration cannot be detected by the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer. Any post-processing results indicating a vanishing, non-zero difference between the charged and uncharged states of the capacitor are due to local effects rather than spacetime perturbations.

The White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer (WJWFI), which is a modified, seismically-isolated Fabry-Pérot interferometer, has been developed to detect spacetime distortions created by a ~10^6 V·m-1 static electric field. The interferometer employs a 6328 Å HeNe laser, in which one of the two beams passes between two electrically charged parallel plates. The beams are recombined on a CCD array.

However, the spacetime distortions produced by such an electric field are exceptionally below the detection threshold of all present-day interferometry techniques. Additionally, an analysis of refractive index variations, due to plausible air temperature differences in the laboratory, was conducted, and the resulting beam refraction is shown to be potentially above the lower
limit of detectability of the WJWFI.

The WJWFI is totally incapable of detecting the minute distortions of spacetime produced by a 4.4 J·m-3 electric field. The static electric field of equivalent radius required to achieve the microlensing detection threshold would be ~10^12 V·m-1. Therefore, any vanishing non-zero difference between the charged and uncharged states of the plates is clearly due other factors.

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