Astrophysical implications of gravitational microlensing of gravitational waves

Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Lecce, and INFN, Sezione di Lecce, Via Arnesano, CP 193, 73100 Lecce, Italy

G. Ingrosso

Received: 12 October 2000
Accepted: 7 November 2000

Abstract

Astrophysical implications of gravitational microlensing of gravitational waves emitted by rotating neutron stars (NSs) are investigated. In particular, attention is focused on the following situations: i) NSs in the galactic bulge lensed by a central black hole of or by stars and MACHOs distributed in the galactic bulge, disk and halo between Earth and the sources; ii) NSs in globular clusters lensed by a central black hole of ∼10 or by stars and MACHOs distributed throughout the Galaxy. The detection of such kind of microlensing events will give a unique opportunity for the unambiguous mapping of the central region of the Galaxy and of globular clusters. In addition, the detection of such events will provide a new test of the General Theory of Relativity. Gravitational microlensing will, moreover, increase the challenge of detecting gravitational waves from NSs.