Gravitational Radiation Theory and Light Propagation

TL;DR

This paper introduces the theory of gravitational radiation from isolated sources and examines how light propagates in radiative gravitational fields, including effects like bending, time delay, and frequency shifts, with implications for gravitational wave detection.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding gravitational wave generation, propagation, and light interaction, incorporating post-Newtonian corrections and lensing effects.

Findings

Derived quadrupole-moment laws with post-Newtonian corrections.

Analyzed light bending and time delay in gravitational wave fields.

Outlined procedures for gravitational wave detection using time delay effects.

Abstract

The paper gives an introduction to the gravitational radiation theory of isolated sources and to the propagation properties of light rays in radiative gravitational fields. It presents a theoretical study of the generation, propagation, back-reaction, and detection of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources. After reviewing the various quadrupole-moment laws for gravitational radiation in the Newtonian approximation, we show how to incorporate post-Newtonian corrections into the source multipole moments, the radiative multipole moments at infinity, and the back-reaction potentials. We further treat the light propagation in the linearized gravitational field outside a gravitational wave emitting source. The effects of time delay, bending of light, and moving source frequency shift are presented in terms of the gravitational lens potential. Time delay results are applied in the description of the procedure of the detection of gravitational waves.