Schedule Feb 10, 2006
Photon Energy Upshift by Gravitational Waves a Possible Source of X-ray Bursts
Bingham, Mendoca, H-T Wang

For events as violent as the core-collapse of stars and merger of black holes, one of the largest portions of energy released is through gravitational radiation. This leads to a number o important issues. For instance, does there exist any mechanism by which some of the GW energy may be transferred to photons and other particles? If such a mechanism exists, how relevant is it for energetic events like gamma ray bursts (GRBs). Here we consider the propagation of light from an isolated source that emits gravitational waves .The eikonal approach is employed to determine the transfer of energy from the gravitational to electromagnetic radiation. It is found that, a significant upshift of photon energy can occur according to a power-law buildup over the radial distance. This somewhat surprising effect may be responsible for some of the unexplained high energy phenomena in the cosmos involving gamma rays or other forms of astro-particles.

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