Gauge independent response of a laser interferometer to gravitational waves

Abstract

Laser interferometer response to a plane gravitational wave on the Minkowski background is given. The derivation does not assume any particular gauge within a class compatible with almost Minkowskian coordinates that preserve a plane wave form of the solutions. Consequently all ten modes of the metric are taken into an account. The final result, the time of flight of a laser signal exchanged between freely moving observers, is expressed in the form of integrals of the metric perturbations taken along the undisturbed trajectories. The result can be applied in any metric theory o gravity; it is valid in the first order of the perturbation and does not assume the long wavelength approximation. The obtained response is shown to define an observable, i.e. it is gauge--invariant with respect to the assumed class of gauge transformations

10 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Detecting Beyond-Einstein Polarizations of Continuous Gravitational Waves
• LISA Sensitivities to Gravitational Waves from Relativistic Metric Theories of Gravity
• Fermi-normal, optical, and wave-synchronous coordinates for spacetime with a plane gravitational wave
• Angular and frequency response of the gravitational wave interferometers in the metric theories of gravity
• Laser interferometer response to scalar massive gravitational waves

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Gauge transformation of scalar induced tensor perturbation during matter domination
• On the gauge dependence of scalar induced secondary gravitational waves during radiation and matter domination eras
• Testing gravity with gauge-invariant polarization states of gravitational waves: Theory and pulsar timing sensitivity
• The Electromagnetic Field in Gravitational Wave Interferometers
• The Response of Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors Beyond the Eikonal Equation