• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.66.104009
• Corpus ID: 119395604

Gravitational optics: Self-phase modulation and harmonic cascades

@article{Mendona2002GravitationalOS,
  title={Gravitational optics: Self-phase modulation and harmonic cascades},
  author={Jos{\'e} Tito Mendonça and Vitor Cardoso},
  journal={Physical Review D},
  year={2002},
  volume={66},
  pages={104009}
}

• J. T. Mendonça, V. Cardoso
• Published 21 September 2002
• Physics
• Physical Review D

Nonlinear wave interaction of low amplitude gravitational waves in flat space-time is considered. Analogy with optics is established. It is shown that the flat metric space-time is equivalent to a centro-symmetric optical medium, with no second order susceptibility. The lowest order nonlinear effects are those due to the third order nonlinearity and include self-phase modulation and high harmonic generation. These processes lead to an efficient energy dilution of the gravitational wave energy over an increasingly large spectral range.