Cosmic shimmering: the gravitational wave signal of time-resolved cosmic shear observations
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Mentasti, Giorgio
Contaldi, Carlo
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We introduce a novel approach for detecting gravitational waves through their influence on the shape of resolved astronomical objects. This method, complementary to pulsar timing arrays and astrometric techniques, explores the time-dependent distortions caused by gravitational waves on the shapes of celestial bodies, such as galaxies or any resolved extended object. By developing a formalism based on that adopted in the analysis of weak lensing effects, we derive the response functions for gravitational wave-induced distortions and compute their angular correlation functions. Our results highlight the sensitivity of these distortions to the lowest frequencies of the gravitational wave spectrum and demonstrate how they produce distinct angular correlation signatures, including null and polarisation-sensitive correlations. These findings pave the way for future high-resolution surveys to exploit this novel observable, potentially offering new insights into the stochastic gravitational wave background and cosmological models.
Date Issued
2025-06-01
Date Acceptance
2025-04-22
Citation
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2025, 2025 (6)
ISSN
1475-7516
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Volume
2025
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Sissa Medialab. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
License URL
Identifier
10.1088/1475-7516/2025/06/013
Subjects
gravitational waves / experiments
gravitational waves / theory
weak gravitational lensing
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
013
Date Publish Online
2025-06-06