Detection of extremely low frequency gravitational wave using gravitational lens: The general case

TL;DR

This paper investigates how extremely low frequency gravitational waves affect time delays in Einstein rings within gravitational lens systems, extending previous specific case results to more general configurations.

Contribution

It generalizes previous findings by analyzing arbitrary source, observer, and gravitational wave orientations, confirming the same relationship in time delays.

Findings

Time delays depend on gravitational wave presence in general configurations.

The relationship between time delays and gravitational waves holds beyond symmetric cases.

Results support using Einstein rings to detect cosmological gravitational waves.

Abstract

The effect of gravitational wave of extremely low frequency on time delays between different locations on the Einstein ring in a lens system with an aligned source-deflector-observer configuration is investigated. The observer will observe an Einstein ring from the lens system aligned in a highly symmetric configuration. Time delays between different locations on the Einstein ring cannot emerge without gravitational wave of cosmological wavelength propagating through the lens system. Otherwise, different locations on the Einstein ring will show time delays. Our previous studies showed that time delays from different locations on the Einstein ring in the presence of gravitational wave of cosmological wavelength present a special relationship. But this result is limited to a specific aligned source-deflector-observer configuration where the source and the observer are equidistant from the deflector and the gravitational wave has special direction of propagation and polarization. In order to investigate the property in the general case, we extend to the general condition that the source and the observer aren't equidistant from the deflector and the direction and polarization of the gravitational wave is arbitrary in the present work. Results in this work show that time delays between different locations on the Einstein ring with the general condition present the same relationship as that in our previous studies.