A longitudinal component in massive gravitational waves arising from a bimetric theory of gravity

Abstract

After a brief review of the work of de Paula, Miranda and Marinho on massive gravitational waves arising from a bimetric theory of gravity, in this paper it is shown that the presence of the mass generates a longi- tudinal component in a particular polarization of the wave. The effect of this polarization on test masses is performed using the geodesic deviation. A the end of this paper the detectability of this particular polarization is also discussed, showing that its angular dependence could, in princi- ple, discriminate such polarization with respect the two ones of general relativity, if present or future detectors will achieve a high sensitivity.