A Macroscopic Gravity Wave Effect

Abstract

Gravitational waves, although generally associated with extremely microscopic effects, can displace by hundreds of kilometers the pulsar interstellar scintillation patterns that bathe the Earth. The combination of the pulsar and the interstellar medium acts as a kiloparsec-long, nature-provided gravity wave amplifier. We show how an effective scheme for the detection of periodic gravity waves can be constructed based on this effect. This approach to detection does not require the development of new, ad hoc technology, but the optimization of existing observational techniques in a few different fields of astronomy. Part of the scheme is a new, purely numerical detection technique that can also be used in the data processing of other projects of periodic gravity wave detection.