23–25 Oct 2024
Sala riunioni "Galilei"
Europe/Rome timezone

Proper time path integrals for gravitational waves: an improved wave optics framework

24 Oct 2024, 16:35
25m

Speaker

Ginevra Braga (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Description

When gravitational waves travel from their source to an observer, they interact with matter structures along their path, causing distinct deformations in their waveforms.
In this study we introduce a novel theoretical framework for wave optics effects in gravitational lensing, addressing the limitations of existing approaches. We achieve this by incorporating the proper time technique, typically used in field theory studies, into gravitational lensing.
This approach allows us to extend the standard formalism beyond the eikonal and paraxial approximations, which are traditionally assumed, and to account for polarization effects, which are typically neglected in the literature. We demonstrate that our method provides a robust generalization of conventional approaches, including them as special cases. Our findings enhance our understanding of gravitational wave propagation, which is crucial for accurately interpreting gravitational wave observations and extracting unbiased information about the lenses from the gravitational wave
waveforms.

Primary authors

Dr Alice Garoffolo (UPenn) Angelo Ricciardone (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Ginevra Braga (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Nicola Bartolo (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Sabino Matarrese (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)

Presentation materials