Interactions between linear polarized gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves in an electromagnetic analog of gravity

We study the interaction among gravitational and electromagnetic plane waves by means of an analog electromagnetic model of gravity, where the gravitational properties are encoded in the electromagnetic properties of a material in flat space-time. In this setup, the variations in the metric tensor produced by the gravitational waves are codified as space-time-varying electromagnetic properties. We use an in-house code based on the finite-difference time-domain method to conduct numerical experiments, where we find that, when a monochromatic gravitational plane wave interacts with a narrow-band electromagnetic plane wave, an infinite number of sidebands, equally separated between themselves, are induced by the gravitational wave. Finally, we discuss possible future applications of this effect as an alternative method to directly detect gravitational waves.

Interactions between linear polarized gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves in an electromagnetic analog of gravity Articles