Gravitational waves: some less discussed intriguing issues

Abstract

Attempts to detect gravitational waves is actively in progress with sophisticated devices like LIGO setup across continents. Despite being predicted almost 100 years ago, there has so far been no direct detection of these waves. In this work, we draw attention to some of the less discussed but subtle aspects arising, for example, from high orbital eccentricities, where emission near periastron could be millions of times more than that in the distant parts of the orbit. The strong field nonlinear effects close to the compact objects can substantially slow down and deflect the waves in the last (few) orbit(s) where much of the intensity is expected. Spin–orbit and other forces could be significant. There would also be plasma like resonant absorption (of kilohertz radiation) during the collapse. Recent observation of supermassive black holes at high redshift implies cluster collapse, where the gravitational wave intensity depends on very high powers of the mass. Any unambiguous claim of detection should perhaps consider several of these effects.