Light deflection by gravitational waves from localized sources
Abstract
We study the deflection of light (and the redshift, or integrated time delay) caused by the time-dependent gravitational field generated by a localized material source lying close to the line of sight. Our calculation explicitly takes into account the full, near-zone, plus intermediate-zone, plus wave-zone, retarded gravitational field. Contrary to several recent claims in the literature, we find that the deflections due to both the wave-zone 1/r gravitational wave and the intermediate-zone 1/r^2 retarded fields vanish exactly. The leading total time-dependent deflection caused by a localized material source, such as a binary system, is proven to be given by the quasi-static, near-zone quadrupolar piece of the gravitational field, and therefore to fall off as the inverse cube of the impact parameter.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9802019,
title = {Light deflection by gravitational waves from localized sources},
author = {Thibault Damour and Gilles Esposito-Farese},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9802019},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
12 pages, REVTeX 3.0, no figure