Damping of long wavelength gravitational waves by the intergalactic medium

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AC5376MaRDI QIDQ5066847zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors R. Lieu, Kristen Lackeos, Bing Zhang

Publication date 30 March 2022

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.03830

zbMATH Keywords

gravitational wave absorptiongravitational wavesintergalactic medium

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Wave front sets in context of PDEs (35A18) Spectrum, resolvent (47A10) Applications of Brownian motions and diffusion theory (population genetics, absorption problems, etc.) (60J70) Motion of charged particles (78A35) Composite media; random media in optics and electromagnetic theory (78A48) Lasers, masers, optical bistability, nonlinear optics (78A60) Classical and relativistic thermodynamics (80A10) Coherent states (81R30) Statistical mechanics of plasmas (82D10) Gravitational waves (83C35) Electromagnetic fields in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C50)

Abstract: The problem of radiation by the charged particles of the intergalactic medium (IGM) when a passing gravitational wave (GW) accelerate them is investigated. The largest acceleration (taking a charge from rest to a maximum speed which remains non-relativistic in the rest frame of the unperturbed spacetime) is found to be limited by the curvature of a propagating spherical gravitational wavefront. Interesting physics arises from the ensuing emission of radiation into the warm hot IGM, which to lowest order is a fully ionized hydrogen plasma with a frozen-in magnetic field $B$. It is found that for a vast majority of propagation directions, the right-handed polarized radiation can penetrate the plasma at frequencies below the plasma frequency $o{m}_p$, provided $om<o{m}_b,$ where $o{m}_b=eB/m_e$ satisfies $o{m}_b<o{m}_p$ for typical IGM conditions. Moreover, the refractive index under such a scenario is $ngg1,$ resulting in an enhanced radiative dissipation of GW energy (relative to the vacuum scenario), which is more severe for electrons if both charge species are in thermal equilibrium and accelerated in the same way. The emission by the electrons then prevails, and is further amplified by coherent addition of amplitudes within the size one wavelength. The conversion of GWs of $lamgtrsim5imes10^{13}$~cm to electromagnetic waves means such GWs can only propagate a distance $lesssim1$~Gpc before being significantly damped by an IGM B field of $sim10^{-8}$ G. The low-frequency GWs extcolor{black}{targeted by pulsar-timing-arrays} will not survive unless the IGM magnetic field is much lower than expected. The extcolor{black}{mHz} frequency GW inspirals targeted by future extcolor{black}{space based} detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna remain intact and can be detected.

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Cites work

• Effects of external magnetic field on propagation of electromagnetic wave in uniform magnetized plasma slabs
• Gravitational waves and pulsar timing: stochastic background, individual sources and parameter estimation
• Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations
• The motion of point particles in curved spacetime

Cited in

(2)

• Dispersion of gravitational waves in cold spherical interstellar medium
• On the transverse-traceless gauge condition when matter is presented

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