English

Can a "pure vector" gravitational wave mimic a "pure tensor" one?

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2019-03-25 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

In the general theory of relativity, gravitational waves have two possible polarizations, which are transverse and traceless with helicity ±2\pm 2. Some alternatives theories contain additional helicity 00 and helicity ±1\pm 1 polarization modes. Here, we consider a hypothetical "pure vector" theory in which gravitational waves have only two possible polarizations, with helicity ±1\pm 1. We show that if these polarizations are allowed to rotate as the wave propagates, then for certain source locations on the sky, the strain outputs of three ideal interferometric gravitational wave detectors can exactly reproduce the strain outputs predicted by general relativity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1801.04800,
  title  = {Can a "pure vector" gravitational wave mimic a "pure tensor" one?},
  author = {Bruce Allen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.04800},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

8 pages, including one figure. Updated to agree with version published in PRD. Typo corrected in Appendix

R2 v1 2026-06-22T23:45:18.578Z