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Authors: Bence Kocsis, Abraham Loeb (Harvard)

Date: 10 Apr 2007

Abstract: When a source emits a gravity-wave (GW) pulse over a short period of time, the leading edge of the GW signal is moving outwards more slowly than the inner boundary of the pulse. The GW pulse is compressed by the gravitational effect of the self-energy residing in between these shells. We illustrate this compression for GW pulses from the final plunge of BH binaries, leading to the magnification and frequency blueshift of the GW signal. The compression depends on the total GW energy released and the duration of the emission, scaled by the total binary mass. The effect cannot be easily seen in finite box simulations because the GW shells approach each other only logarithmically with increasing distance from the source. For characteristic emission parameters at the final plunge between binary BHs of arbitrary spins, this effect could compress the simulated GW templates for LIGO and LISA by several percent over astrophysical distances. Measurement of the wave compression would allow to independently constrain distances and hence cosmological parameters, and will help to localize possible electromagnetic counterparts to GW sources.

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