Cross Section of a Resonant-Mass Detector for Scalar Gravitational Waves

TL;DR

This paper calculates how a spherical resonant-mass detector interacts with scalar and tensor gravitational waves within Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory, exploring detection prospects for scalar waves from gravitational collapse.

Contribution

It derives cross sections for scalar and tensor wave interactions with a resonant-mass detector in Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory, extending previous results in General Relativity.

Findings

Cross sections computed for scalar and tensor waves.

Results reduce to General Relativity in a specific limit.

Discussion on detectability of scalar waves from collapse.

Abstract

Gravitationally coupled scalar fields, originally introduced by Jordan, Brans and Dicke to account for a non constant gravitational coupling, are a prediction of many non-Einsteinian theories of gravity not excluding perturbative formulations of String Theory. In this paper, we compute the cross sections for scattering and absorption of scalar and tensor gravitational waves by a resonant-mass detector in the framework of the Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory. The results are then specialized to the case of a detector of spherical shape and shown to reproduce those obtained in General Relativity in a certain limit. Eventually we discuss the potential detectability of scalar waves emitted in a spherically symmetric gravitational collapse.