Graviton-photon conversion in blazar jets as a probe of high-frequency gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to detect high-frequency gravitational waves by analyzing graviton-photon conversion in blazar jets, providing new constraints that surpass previous limits in certain frequency ranges.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to constrain high-frequency gravitational waves using astrophysical observations of blazar jets and calculates conversion rates across different jet models.

Findings

Constraints on gravitational wave abundance are more stringent than previous limits.

Effective in the frequency range from 10^8 Hz to 10^15 Hz.

Applicable across multiple jet emission models.

Abstract

We study graviton-photon conversion in the magnetic fields of a blazar jet and explore the possibility of detecting high-frequency gravitational waves through blazar observations. We calculate the conversion rate using the magnetic field configurations of leptonic, lepto-hadronic, and hadronic one-zone synchrotron self-Compton models for the blazar jet of Mrk 501. By requiring that the photon flux produced within the blazar jet does not exceed the observed flux of Mrk 501, we derive conservative constraints on the abundance of stochastic gravitational waves. We find that, for all three models considered, the resulting limits can be more stringent than previous constraints in the frequency range from $10^8$ Hz to $10^{15}$ Hz.