Astrophysical and cosmological scenarios for gravitational wave heating

TL;DR

This paper explores how gravitational waves can heat and damp matter in various astrophysical and cosmological scenarios, including neutron star mergers, supernovae, and primordial waves, revealing potential observable effects.

Contribution

It extends previous models to analyze GW heating in multiple astrophysical and cosmological contexts, highlighting its significance and potential observational signatures.

Findings

GW heating can significantly increase temperature in astrophysical environments

Damping of GWs affects energy transfer and matter dynamics

Primordial GWs contribute to early universe heating

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) passing through a viscous shell of matter are expected to be damped resulting in an increase in the temperature of the fluid as energy is transferred to it from the GWs. In previous work we constructed a model for this process, obtaining an expression for the temperature distribution inside the shell, and it was shown that the temperature increase can be astrophysically significant. In this paper we extend the analysis to GW heating and damping following a binary neutron star merger, GW heating during a core-collapse supernova, and primordial gravitational waves.