Coupling Light Waves to Gravitational Waves

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2502.12166
• Publication Date: 2025-02-12
• Authors: Martin W. McCall; Stefanos Fr. Kouf...
• Keywords: Physics - General Physics; General Physics (physics.gen-ph); FOS: Physical sciences

We demonstrate that gravitational waves, upon interacting with co-propagating electromagnetic radiation, induce distinctive sidebands on the modulated light, thereby providing a detectable signature of their presence. Employing covariant coupled-wave framework, we envision waves as phase-insensitive ``luminal moving gratings'' and derive phase-matching conditions articulate such an interaction whilst conserving both energy momentum. Besides preserving directional coupling imposes no coherence requirements, hence enabling possibilities for exploiting cosmic microwave background radiation. Although detection at low frequencies is constrained by requirement long lengths, advances in laser technology are poised to enable high-frequency wave detection, potentially unveiling insights into primordial spacetime ripples traversing cosmos since inflationary epoch.