Hello forum,

 

I was thinking about gravitational lensing and was curious if it affects gravitational waves in the same time. We have just recently detected gravitational waves by LIGO but if there would be a neutron star crash at a large distance that would hypothetically emit photons and gravitational waves at the exact same time, would we "receive" them here on earth in the exact same time despite any "deflection" to the light (and gravitational waves?) caused by a massive object? 

If yes, are we using this effect to confirm LIGO results?

"Photons of light are not technically affected by large gravitational fields; instead space and time itself become distorted around incredibly massive objects and the light simply follows this distorted curvature of space."

Edited October 26, 20187 yr by Silvestru

38 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

I was thinking about gravitational lensing and was curious if it affects gravitational waves in the same time.

Yes it does. There are a few mentions of it here: https://stuver.blogspot.com/search?q=lensing which might answer your question. I don't think we can pinpoint to location of the source accurately enough yet to detect whether any lensing has taken place.