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Issue A&A Volume 394, Number 2, November I 2002 Page(s) 749 - 752 Section Physical and chemical processes DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20021258

A&A 394, 749-752 (2002)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20021258

Research Note

A note on gravitational wave lensing

F. De Paolis¹, G. Ingrosso¹, A. A. Nucita¹ and A. Qadir<sup>2, 3

1</sup>  Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Lecce, and INFN, Sezione di Lecce, via Arnesano, CP 193, 73100 Lecce, Italy
²  Department of Mathematical Sciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
³  Department of Mathematics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

(Received 24 May 2002 / Accepted 22 August 2002)

Abstract
In a recent paper (Ruffa 1999) it was proposed that the massive black hole at the Galactic center may act as a gravitational lens focusing gravitational wave energy to the Earth. Considering the gravitational wave signal emitted by galactic spinning pulsars, an enhancement in the gravitational wave intensity by a factor of a few thousand is found. For galactic and extra-galactic sources the intensity enhancement can be as high as 4000 and 17 000, respectively. In this note we consider the probability of significant signal enhancement from galactic and extra-galactic pulsars by the proposed mechanism and find that it is actually negligible. The lensing effect due to a possible companion object (a star or the galactic center black hole) of the gravitational wave source is also investigated in the framework of the classical microlensing theory.

Key words: gravitation -- gravitational waves -- gravitational lensing

Offprint request: F. De Paolis, Francesco.DePaolis@le.infn.it

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