Hello everybody!
I’m having a hard time in understanding some basic things about GW. For example, the waveform that the detectors obtain are h vs. t plots, right? Is it correct to say that the strain h is like a dimensionless amplitude of the GW? I get it when it says that h=Delta L/L because that is the effect on the detectors, but intrinsically to the wave…is it really its amplitude? Does it have to do somehow with the perturbation h_ij?
Hi @gaba
Yes - that’s right. The “strain” is directly related to the metric perturbation. There are lots of textbooks and papers that try to describe this relationship. For example, you might try this paper, especially around equations 3.5 and 3.6.
Or, a favorite for many people is Peter Saulson’s book.
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Oh great! Thank you!!! 