On the frequency shift of gravitational waves

Abstract

Considering plane gravitational waves propagating through flat spacetime, it is shown that curvatures experienced both in the starting point and during their arrival at the earth can cause a considerable shift in the frequencies as measured by earth and space-based detectors. Particularly for the case of resonant bar detectors this shift can cause noise-filters to smother the signal.

11 pages, 3 figures; ws-mpla.cls format. This is the first reviewed version submitted to MPLA. Final version in press at Modern Physics Letters A, accepted in Jan 2010