Gravitational Wave Solutions to Linearized Jordan-Brans-Dicke Theory on a Cosmological Background

Abstract

Approximate vacuum solutions of Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory for perturbed scalar field and perturbed Robertson-Walker metric, are found. Solutions for the scale factor and the scalar field in unperturbed JBD theory are dependent on the $\omega$ parameter which determines how the scalar field is coupled to geometry of space-time. After adding a metric perturbation to Robertson-Walker metric and a perturbation to the scalar field, we solved the linearized JBD equations and found the scale factor and the scalar field as $a\propto t$ and $\phi\propto t^{-2}$ with $\omega=$-3/2. The results are necessary conditions for ordinary and scalar gravitational waves to exist in the vacuum case. Despite omega is a large positive number for current solar system environment observations, this value of omega makes JBD theory conformally invariant and fits recent supernovae type Ia data. We also looked for the value of omega for the case which has nonzero spatial curvature parameter.