English

Gravitational Faraday rotation of gravitational waves by a Kerr black hole

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2022-11-09 v2

Abstract

Gravitational Faraday Rotation (GFR) is a frame-dragging effect induced by rotating massive objects, which is one of the important, yet studied characteristics of lensed gravitational waves (GWs). In this work, we calculate the GFR angle χg\chi_g of GWs in the weak deflection limit, assuming it is lensed by a Kerr black hole (BH). We find that the GFR effect changes the initial polarization state of the lensed GW. Compared with the Einstein deflection angle, the dominant term of the rotation angle χg\chi_g is a second-order correction to the polarization angle, which depends on the light-of-sight component of BH angular momentum. Such a rotation is tiny and degenerates with the initial polarization angle. In some critical cases, the GFR angle is close to the detection capability of the third-generation GW detector network, although the degeneracy has to be broken.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2204.10512,
  title  = {Gravitational Faraday rotation of gravitational waves by a Kerr black hole},
  author = {Zhao Li and Jin Qiao and Wen Zhao and Xinzhong Er},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.10512},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

13 pages, 1 figure, accepted by JCAP