Properties of Information Carrying Waves in Cosmology

Recently we studied the effects of information carrying waves propagating through isotropic cosmologies. By information carrying we mean that the waves have an arbitrary dependence on a function. We found that the waves introduce shear and anisotropic stress into the universe. We then constructed explicit examples of pure gravity wave perturbations for which the presence of this anisotropic stress is essential and the null hypersurfaces playing the role of the histories of the wave-fronts in the background space-time are shear-free. Motivated by this result we now prove that these two properties are true for all information carrying waves in isotropic cosmologies.Comment: 15 pages, Latex File, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Metric Perturbation Approach to Gravitational Waves in Isotropic Cosmologies

Gravitational waves in isotropic cosmologies were recently studied using the gauge-invariant approach of Ellis-Bruni. We now construct the linearised metric perturbations of the background Robertson-Walker space-time which reproduce the results obtained in that study. The analysis carried out here also facilitates an easy comparison with Bardeen.Comment: 29 pages, Latex file, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Shear-Free Gravitational Waves in an Anisotropic Universe

We study gravitational waves propagating through an anisotropic Bianchi I dust-filled universe (containing the Einstein-de-Sitter universe as a special case). The waves are modeled as small perturbations of this background cosmological model and we choose a family of null hypersurfaces in this space-time to act as the histories of the wavefronts of the radiation. We find that the perturbations we generate can describe pure gravitational radiation if and only if the null hypersurfaces are shear-free. We calculate the gauge-invariant small perturbations explicitly in this case. How these differ from the corresponding perturbations when the background space-time is isotropic is clearly exhibited.Comment: 32 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Gravitational Wave Propagation in Isotropic Cosmologies

We study the propagation of gravitational waves carrying arbitrary information through isotropic cosmologies. The waves are modelled as small perturbations of the background Robertson-Walker geometry. The perfect fluid matter distribution of the isotropic background is, in general, modified by small anisotropic stresses. For pure gravity waves, in which the perturbed Weyl tensor is radiative (i.e. type N in the Petrov classification), we construct explicit examples for which the presence of the anisotropic stress is shown to be essential and the histories of the wave-fronts in the background Robertson-Walker geometry are shear-free null hypersurfaces. The examples derived in this case are analogous to the Bateman waves of electromagnetic theory.Comment: 27 pages, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Evolution of high-frequency gravitational waves in some cosmological models

We investigate Isaacson's high-frequency gravitational waves which propagate in some relevant cosmological models, in particular the FRW spacetimes. Their time evolution in Fourier space is explicitly obtained for various metric forms of (anti--)de Sitter universe. Behaviour of high-frequency waves in the anisotropic Kasner spacetime is also described.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Czech. J. Phy

Nonlinear coupled Alfv\'{e}n and gravitational waves

In this paper we consider nonlinear interaction between gravitational and electromagnetic waves in a strongly magnetized plasma. More specifically, we investigate the propagation of gravitational waves with the direction of propagation perpendicular to a background magnetic field, and the coupling to compressional Alfv\'{e}n waves. The gravitational waves are considered in the high frequency limit and the plasma is modelled by a multifluid description. We make a self-consistent, weakly nonlinear analysis of the Einstein-Maxwell system and derive a wave equation for the coupled gravitational and electromagnetic wave modes. A WKB-approximation is then applied and as a result we obtain the nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation for the slowly varying wave amplitudes. The analysis is extended to 3D wave pulses, and we discuss the applications to radiation generated from pulsar binary mergers. It turns out that the electromagnetic radiation from a binary merger should experience a focusing effect, that in principle could be detected.Comment: 20 pages, revtex4, accepted in PR

The stochastic gravitational wave background from turbulence and magnetic fields generated by a first-order phase transition

We analytically derive the spectrum of gravitational waves due to magneto-hydrodynamical turbulence generated by bubble collisions in a first-order phase transition. In contrast to previous studies, we take into account the fact that turbulence and magnetic fields act as sources of gravitational waves for many Hubble times after the phase transition is completed. This modifies the gravitational wave spectrum at large scales. We also model the initial stirring phase preceding the Kolmogorov cascade, while earlier works assume that the Kolmogorov spectrum sets in instantaneously. The continuity in time of the source is relevant for a correct determination of the peak position of the gravitational wave spectrum. We discuss how the results depend on assumptions about the unequal-time correlation of the source and motivate a realistic choice for it. Our treatment gives a similar peak frequency as previous analyses but the amplitude of the signal is reduced due to the use of a more realistic power spectrum for the magneto-hydrodynamical turbulence. For a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition, the signal is observable with the space interferometer LISA.Comment: 46 pages, 17 figures. Replaced with revised version accepted for publication in JCA

Search for the lepton-family-number nonconserving decay \mu -> e + \gamma

The MEGA experiment, which searched for the muon- and electron-number violating decay \mu -> e + \gamma, is described. The spectrometer system, the calibrations, the data taking procedures, the data analysis, and the sensitivity of the experiment are discussed. The most stringent upper limit on the branching ratio of \mu -> e + \gamma) < 1.2 x 10^{-11} was obtained