Modifications to the signal from a gravitational wave event due to a surrounding shell of matter

2021/01/29 by Monos Naidoo, Nigel T. Bishop, Nigel T Bishop +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Binary black hole #Binary number #Black hole (networking) #Computer science #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Event (particle physics) #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #LIGO #Neutron star #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #SIGNAL (programming language) #Shell (structure) #Supernova #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10714-021-02841-z

published in General Relativity and Gravitation 53(8) (Springer Science+Business Media) · 13 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2021/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2021/08/01 · arxiv updated 2021/08/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In previous work, we established theoretical results concerning the effect of matter shells surrounding a gravitational wave (GW) source, and we now apply these results to astrophysical scenarios. Firstly, it is shown that GW echoes that are claimed to be present in LIGO data of certain events, could not have been caused by a matter shell. However, it is also shown that there are scenarios in which matter shells could make modifications of order a few percent to a GW signal; these scenarios include binary black hole mergers, binary neutron star mergers, and core collapse supernovae.

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