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Can gravitational waves be detected in quasar microlensing?

Shane L. Larson, Rudolph Schild

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0007142

Abstract

Studies of the lensed quasar Q0957+561 A,B have shown evidence for microlensing in the brightness history of the quasar images. It had been suggested that a frequency offset between the brightness fluctuations in each of the two images might possibly be caused by gravitational radiation generated by a massive black hole binary at the center of the lensing galaxy. This paper demonstrates that the fluctuations produced by such a source of gravitational waves will be too small to account for the observed frequency offsets.

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