Frequency response of space-based interferometric gravitational-wave detectors

Abstract

Gravitational waves are perturbations of the metric of space-time. Six polarizations are possible, although general relativity predicts that only two such polarizations, tensor plus and tensor cross are present for gravitational waves. We give the analytical formulas for the antenna response functions for the six polarizations which are valid for any equal-arm interferometric gravitational-wave detectors without optical cavities in the arms. The response function averaged over the source direction and polarization angle decreases at high frequencies which deteriorates the signal-to-noise ratio registered in the detector. At high frequencies, the averaged response functions for the tensor and breathing modes fall of as 1/f^2, the averaged response function for the longitudinal mode falls off as 1/f and the averaged response function for the vector mode falls off as ln(f)/f^2.