Detecting the processes of colliding plane gravitational waves by electromagnetic response signals

Abstract

In this paper, we have considered how to detect the processes of plane gravitational waves colliding. The degenerate Ferrari-Ibanez solution describes the collision of plane gravitational waves with aligned linear polarization, and the solution of the interaction region is Schwarzschild-like metric by taking coordinate transformation, which impels us more interesting to detect the process to explore. We have calculated explicitly out the solutions of the electromagnetic field produced by the plane gravitational wave and the colliding region of plane gravitational waves perturbing a weak magnetic field background. The magnitudes are so small that the likelihood of detecting gravitational waves is only just emergence within the range of the most high-level modern apparatus such as the further upgraded aLIGO, but we can judge whether the collision process has occurred or not by measuring the amplitude and waveform of electromagnetic wave properties. Moreover, detecting electromagnetic waves can offer a new method to verify general relativity.