INTEGRATED SACHS-WOLFE EFFECT FOR GRAVITATIONAL RADIATION

Journal Article · Thu May 20 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/715/1/L12· OSTI ID:21448763

Laguna, Pablo ^[1]; Larson, Shane L ^[2]; Spergel, David ^[3]; Yunes, Nicolas ^[4]

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1. Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322 (United States)
3. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
4. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)

Gravitational waves (GWs) are messengers carrying valuable information about their sources. For sources at cosmological distances, the waves will also contain the imprint left by the intervening matter. The situation is in close analogy with cosmic microwave photons, for which the large-scale structures the photons traverse contribute to the observed temperature anisotropies, in a process known as the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. We derive the GW counterpart of this effect for waves propagating on a Friedman-Robertson-Walker background with scalar perturbations. We find that the phase, frequency, and amplitude of the GWs experience Sachs-Wolfe-type integrated effects, in addition to the magnification effects on the amplitude from gravitational lensing. We show that for supermassive black hole binaries, the integrated effects could account for measurable changes on the frequency, chirp mass, and luminosity distance of the binary, thus unveiling the presence of inhomogeneities, and potentially dark energy, in the universe.

• OSTI ID: 21448763
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 715; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ANISOTROPY
BLACK HOLES
BOSONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
GRAVITATIONAL RADIATION
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
LUMINOSITY
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MATTER
MICROWAVE RADIATION
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PERTURBATION THEORY
PHOTONS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
UNIVERSE